


Götze

by silkinsilence



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Background Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison/Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Body Worship, Cunnilingus, F/F, Hero Worship, Light Dom/sub, Noodle Dragons, Poor Life Choices, Porn With Plot, Post-Recall, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Sexting, Unhealthy Relationships, fast burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-11-01 13:18:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 84,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10922586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkinsilence/pseuds/silkinsilence
Summary: Angela builds up an idol and watches her fall. Ana makes love and learns contempt.





	1. Acacia

**Author's Note:**

> I like to listen to post-rock while I write, and if you'd like something to listen to while you read, this fic was largely brought to you by _[Hy-Brasil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgoiQcHTn84&list=PLD9BXBDS8ohAfdk80qpgHlKrm6pchmdYh)_ by Lights Out Asia.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a secret love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you have the chance to be all "This is clearly a thinly-veiled excuse for you to write more Anamercy porn," I would just like to go on the record as stating that this is _definitely_ a thinly-veiled excuse to write more Anamercy porn. And now that I've stated that, is it really even thinly-veiled any longer?
> 
> Also, angst. My favorite things. 
> 
> I'll be taking some liberties with canon, specifically with the timeline, but will mostly adhere. And I'm only really taking liberties with the timeline because it doesn't make sense to me.
> 
> A disclaimer: my German is rusty and is really only _Hochdeutsch_ ; I know very little about the Swiss or Swabian dialects. As a result, both Angela and Reinhardt really only speak standard German. But hey, that's what all Mercy's in-game voicelines are, so screw it! But seriously, if any readers out there happen to be Swiss or able to give me more Swiss translations, it would be appreciated. 
> 
> That's that.

"She's teaching you how to shoot."

Angela did not jump, though it took an effort. She hadn't heard anyone else enter the room, and the shooting range wasn't exactly a popular locale at one in the morning. Maybe if she had been paying more attention, she would have heard the footsteps, but she was very good at devoting all her focus to the task at hand. It was a gift that had gotten her through medical school.

She carefully lowered her pistol and turned. She wasn't entirely surprised to discover the intruder. Fareeha Amari was watching her, almost glaring at her, from the doorway.

"What are you doing down here?" she asked.

Fareeha ignored her. She looked from the pistol in Angela's hands to the distant targets at the far end. Angela, suddenly self-conscious, wondered how long she'd been watching; it wouldn't have been an impressive display.

"She'll teach you how to shoot. She'll teach Jesse how to shoot. But she won't teach me."

Angela didn't know how to respond. It was the middle of the night and she had the irate teenage daughter of a woman she very much admired lecturing her on an issue over which she had no control. This kind of thing was why she generally preferred people when they were under anesthesia.

"I'm sorry?" she said eventually, when it became evident that Fareeha was not going to let her silence slide. When the girl's frown deepened, it became obvious that she hadn't said the right thing. She sought about for something else. "Maybe you could ask someone else to teach you."

"I _have_ ," Fareeha said with an impatient eye-roll. "Then they ask why I don't ask Mom, and I tell them she doesn't want me to learn, and then they say they don't want to be on her bad side, so they won't help me either."

"You could lie."

"Wow, that's awfully underhanded coming from you."

"What do you mean by that?" Angela asked, as if she didn't already know. Maybe she just wanted to hear it.

"You're the angel, right?"

Angela felt warmth blossoming in her cheeks. Pride or embarrassment; it didn't make much difference. The angel. The surgeon. Pulling Overwatch's agents, one by one, back from the brink. She tried not to think how many of them would be dead without her. She told herself that there were other surgeons, equally skilled. That she was ultimately of no great significance.

She told herself these things. She did not believe them.

...The angel, here on the range, wielding a pistol and practicing shooting to kill.

Fareeha distracted her from that unpleasant thought with a sigh and a wave of her hand. "Look, I'm sorry. I don't want to fight. It just...bothers me, you know?"

Angela nodded, though she wasn't sure she did know.

"So I have lied to some of them. But Mom always finds out, and then they're mad at me _and_ she's mad at me. So it's better to put everything on the table."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"Well...will you?" Fareeha rocked forward on the balls of her feet.

"Will I what?"

"Teach me."

"What?" Angela sputtered out an indignant laugh. "You want _me_ to teach you how to shoot? Fareeha, I can hardly hit a target myself. I need your mother for a reason, you know."

"Okay, maybe you don't have to teach me," Fareeha said. She looked furtive, almost guilty. "Maybe you just need to let me use your gun so I can practice."

"No," Angela said immediately.

" _Please._ Look, I can work on your schedule. I can come down here whenever you want. You can bring paperwork or something, and I'll just practice while you work. You don't know what it would mean to me. I could owe you a favor or something, anything. I have some pull around here."

Angela snorted. "Pull? What pull does a teenager have?"

"How old are _you_?"

That shut Angela up.

"...Twenty-two."

"Yeah. Ancient. And I'll be eighteen in a year, and maybe she'll let me make my own choices—ugh, whatever. Just, please, at least think about it."

Angela thought. She looked at Fareeha and thought. Her pistol, held loosely in one hand, was forgotten. She was looking at Fareeha and thinking of Ana, of Ana finding out. Ana angry with her. Ana with that constant smile gone, her eyes hard and hawklike on Angela's face. Ana's lip curling with disgust. Ana bending her over her desk and pulling her slacks down and bringing her palm flat against Angela's skin—

Except it wouldn't happen that way, and she really needed to stop thinking about that _now._ Ana's daughter was still looking at her, awaiting an answer, and Angela was vexed to realize that her panties were damp between her thighs.

Getting on Ana Amari's bad side would not end like all of her pleasant fantasies. It would end badly. Certainly it would end their training sessions. And the thought of losing those precious few hours was enough to make up Angela's mind.

"I'm sorry," she said, unable to meet Fareeha's eyes. "Your mother knows best."

Fareeha looked wounded, maybe even betrayed. Had she really expected a different outcome? Expected Overwatch's _angel_ to side with her? Maybe she was just a decent actress. Angela couldn't help feeling guilty, as if there was anything else to be done, as if her answer wasn't completely justified.

"So you're just like everyone else," Fareeha said. "Scared of her."

She turned, looking every inch the petulant teenager, and headed for the range door. Angela watched her go, relieved the conversation was over, guilt still simmering in her stomach.

"Good night," she called. Fareeha made no answer but for the door slamming behind her.

Angela looked down at her pistol, slowly trying to focus again. It was harder than it had been before. She replayed the conversation in her mind and tried not to think about Ana.

A useless attempt. She was always thinking about Ana, especially as she pulled the trigger.

* * *

Overwatch. A name that commanded respect around the globe. And there she was, staring up at the facade of the Swiss headquarters, unsure whether it was the fortress-like building itself or the mountain on which it was perched that was inspiring such awe in her. Zürich was spread below on the banks of the river, guarded by this sentinel and the agents that worked from within.

And they wanted her. _Her._

"There's plenty more to stare at on the inside," her guide said. Angela looked over at him. Every time she did, she was reminded of who exactly _he_ was. As imposing as the building itself, a statue of the man beside her dominated the landscape. It stood above them now, carved in stone, an immense Jack Morrison watching over base and city alike. And he stood there, next to her, flesh and blood.

"I'm sorry," she said, tearing her eyes away from the statue in order to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. If she accepted the offer, this would be where she would work, sleep, live—well, here or at any of Overwatch's numerous other bases. She would work alongside people whose names she had seen on television, whose countenances appeared on posters and street art.

She would see them, she reminded herself, bleeding and crying out in pain on stretchers. She would see at least some of them dead. There would be no time to be starstruck if one of them needed her assistance.

 _If_ she accepted the offer—who was she kidding? She had been sold from the first communication, and even if she hadn't been, she was now.

"Is it always you showing new people around?" she asked.

"Eh, it depends on how we acquire—uh, recruit 'em." Jack grinned sheepishly. "Gabe—Commander Reyes—has his bunch, and the rest of us try to rotate. Reinhardt wanted to pick you up, but he can be a little much, so we out-voted him."

"Voted?" Angela said, smiling. "The Strike Commander needs a vote?"

"Well, this isn't a strike," he said. His eyes fixed on hers momentarily. "It's a recruitment."

"And you're not recruitment commander?"

"Something like that. And look, the title's mostly for show. I'm the one for the cameras. I'm wasting time with photo ops while everyone else does the real work."

He laughed, and she did as well. His amusement was contagious. Talking to him made everything feel more real, made the idea of her working here something other than laughable.

That day was filled with such introductions, figures she had seen on television and heard about, suddenly face-to-face with her.

Reinhardt Willhelm towered over her like a giant, like Jack's statue. She'd heard it said that people often looked smaller in real life than on television, but he was the opposite. She found herself staring, amazed at the sheer size of him above her. Jack chuckled at her reaction, but Reinhardt himself was kinder. His eyes sparkled and his smile was huge.

"Angela Ziegler? Die Schwiezere Ärtzin? Grüss Gott! Oder—grüezi?"

"Grüezi," she responded, unable to stop a smile from spreading her own mouth wide. He offered his hand, and she accepted. Though the shake swallowed her palm whole, he was surprisingly gentle.

"I hope Jack is treating you well! You know, I volunteered to be your guide."

"Yes, he mentioned."

"But he doesn't like being left out," Reinhardt said, leaning toward her and adopting a conspiratorial stage-whisper. When she glanced over at Jack, she saw a reluctant smile fighting its way onto his face. She thought that perhaps it was hard to be around Reinhardt Wilhelm and not smile.

Torbjörn Lindholm was both smaller and less amiable than Reinhardt, though equally fascinating in his own way. He led Angela and Jack on a tour through his workshop, during which Angela found it hard to keep up. She was interested in everything they passed, from what looked like the husks of disabled omnics to piles of scrap metal to a broad array of weaponry. She wanted to ask questions of everything, but the scowl on the engineer's face kept her mouth closed.

"Torbjörn coordinates our defenses and knows omnics better than anyone in the organization," Jack supplied, perhaps sensing Angela's reluctance. "We wouldn't have gotten half this far without him."

"Sure, butter me up, Jack," Torbjörn grumbled. "Don't you have anything better to be doing than wasting my time?"

"I'm sorry to impose," Angela cut in. The engineer turned to look at her, apparently surprised by the interjection.

"Oh, I don't mind you, just this one. Always coming in, asking me to develop some new gun, offering critiques I never asked for."

Jack took the ribbing good-naturedly, if his chuckle was any indication. The two continued to bicker, but when they entered the workshop's back room, Angela's attention was no longer for them. It was for the white-hot gleam of fire burning in a genuine _forge._

"You built—everything out there—like _this_?" she gasped, unable to contain her amazement. The ashen scent of the workshop suddenly made sense. The crackling of the fire was almost hypnotizing. They might as well have slipped several centuries back in time. "Surely there are other ways."

"'Course there are other ways," Torbjörn grunted. "But this is my way. I like working with my hands. Pass me that scrap, would you?"

It took Angela a second to realize that the scrap to which he was referring was a bent sheet of iron lying on the table next to her. She handed it over and watched as the smith pulled helmet, hammer, and tongs from a nearby shelf.

"Better stand back, unless you want to be on the other side of the operating table," he said, at which Angela took several hasty steps back.

"I thought you didn't like people watching you work?" Jack said.

"This's for the doctor, not for you." Torbjörn had to shout to make himself heard, both because of the helmet and because he had begun working the bellows, causing the fire to swell and roar.

From her respectful distance, Angela found it hard to tell exactly what was going on, especially because the fire was so blindingly bright. The smith was wielding both hammer and tongs with obvious experience, turning the piece of metal over and over, pounding it down as it shone red-hot.

After what seemed an impossibly short time, Torbjörn stepped back. The piece clutched in the tongs was much smaller than the sheet he'd started with, but before she could get a good look, he'd dropped it in the awaiting bucket of water, where it hissed and steamed.

"Here you are," he said, lifting it with the tongs and holding it out to her. When she hesitated, he chuckled. "Not to worry. It's cool."

At that, she held out her hands and let him drop it into them.

It was a pin, no bigger than her palm. A circle, with two hands inside clasped as if in supplication—the symbol of Overwatch.

"You made this? Just like that?" She didn't know what to say. She supposed she should fasten it to her shirt, but she didn't want to let go, to stop running her hands over the little grooves. Jack peered over her shoulder to get a better look.

"Eh, it's simple enough compared to everything else," he said, though she thought perhaps there was a smile under his mustache.

"Thank you," she said. "Ah—can I hug you?"

"Oh, all right," he grumbled, but when she wrapped her arms around him he returned the gesture.

She carried the pin in her pocket for the rest of the day, reaching down to touch it every so often. She couldn't explain why it meant so much. All she knew was that, every time she looked at it, it solidified her conviction.

The rest of the day went by in a blur of endless hallways and more introductions. Jack led her to the laboratories, filled with agents all engrossed in various pursuits to which Angela couldn't begin to put a name. Her gaze landed on one woman with a round, cheerful face and large glasses; as if feeling eyes on her, the woman looked up and offered a wave and a smile, which Angela returned.

"Mei-Ling Zhou," Jack offered, as they wove among desks and unquestionably expensive equipment. "She's a climatologist. Usually traveling, but I think she's working on something here."

"A climatologist?"

"Saving the world doesn't end with the omnics," he said, and it was enough of an answer.

By the time the end of her visit was approaching, Angela could hardly remember anything at all. It had been so much, all at once. Lunch in the cafeteria; seeing the medical wing that would be her future workplace; Reinhardt's huge hands around hers; and a small pin in her pocket.

The last meeting wiped all the others away.

The pair of them were on their way out, back toward where they'd first entered the mountain, when they crossed paths with a team of returning agents. There were six or seven of them, all in tactical gear and with packs over their shoulders. Jack seemed surprised to see them, but he greeted each by name as Angela stood by, watching.

"We didn't expect you back for another week, at least—but it went well? You're all alive—?"

"Jack's not a good host, is he?"

The unfamiliar voice came from quite close to Angela's left ear, causing her to flinch and turn in a rather ungraceful manner to see who had spoken.

She didn't know who to expect, given the day's events. But certainly she was _not_ expecting the woman who was standing there. The woman she'd seen on almost as many posters as Jack himself. A woman with a regal face, the Wadjet curling across her cheek, the blue military coat dust-stained and wrapped around her, and the rifle slung across her back.

Angela wanted to look away. She needed to look away. Suddenly her legs had become quite unable to move and her cheeks were getting warmer and warmer. She tried to direct her gaze away from the woman's own, but just found her eyes roving down the dark braid, over the gloves, studying every inch and looking as if her life depended on it, as if she was back in school and there would be a test that required careful memorization.

"He's good," she managed, when she remembered that she had been asked a question. The woman chuckled, raising her eyebrows, and Angela was bowled over again. "He's been fine."

"Fine or good? There's a world of difference there."

Angela was saved, and very grateful for it, when Jack interrupted them.

"You're back early," he said, stepping forward to join the two of them. Angela jumped, surprised again, and managed to tear her eyes away. She felt rather as if she had been caught doing something indecent, as if what she was feeling was obvious on her face.

"The job's done when it's done," the woman returned. "Can't put a schedule on everything."

"Hey, I don't care. I'm just saying Gabriel likes his plans."

"Then Gabriel can speak to me himself when he gets back," she purred, tone saccharine. Angela gripped the pin in her pocket very hard, poked the sharp end into her thumb, bit down on her lip, all to no avail. She didn't look up again. It would be hard to look up again.

"Now stop being rude, Jack, and introduce me to our guest."

"Of course. This is Angela Ziegler. Angela, Ana Amari, best damn sniper in the world and worth her weight in gold."

"What an introduction," Ana said, shaking her head a little. Then a firm hand was gripping Angela's own, and she had no choice but to look back up as Ana leaned in and pressed her lips lightly, gently, to either of Angela's cheeks. When she pulled back, she was smiling. Smiling at Angela. Smiling for Angela.

"From what I've heard, you deserve it," Angela said. Her cheeks were burning. A phantom touch lingered there. There was a smell lingering in her nostrils, dust and sweat and _flowers._ She stared into the vivid golden-brown of Ana Amari's eyes, sucked in again, all thought of escape gone.

"Well, that remains to be seen. But you're the doctor? Jack wasn't lying when he said you were young." Ana's gaze swept up and down Angela, sizing her up. And even as a delighted tingle ran down Angela's spine at the attention, she felt smaller. She remembered who she was. Who the woman standing before her was. She was in the company of heroes.

"I know I'm young," she said, words spilling from her in a desperate flood. She wanted another smile. "I know I don't have much—any—field experience. But I won't let you down. I won't."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, _habibti._ " Her voice was serious. She looked _at_ Angela, _through_ Angela. The doctor didn't know how to respond. Her lips opened, preparing to speak words that never came.

Then there was a hand on her shoulder and a smoky laugh filling the air.

"I'm joking. I'm sure you'll be fine. We'll need you; we all get knocked around enough."

Angela forced herself to laugh along weakly.

That night, safely back in her apartment in Lozärn, Angela remembered it. She thought of strong fingers digging into her shoulder and lips pressing swift kisses to her cheeks. She imagined that scent again, rich and warm and filling her nose.

She remembered it as she propped herself against the shower wall and fucked herself on her own fingers, pretending they were somebody else's. Pretending they were clad in leather, rough and unyielding against her skin. Angela shook and wanted and _felt._ She burned in a way that had nothing to do with the shower water. And when she stroked her clit and came, shuddering, a laugh echoed in her ears.

She rested her head against the tile and gulped in air as streams of water ran down her head, as she washed her hand clean. She could scarcely believe it had actually happened. The whole encounter had taken on a mystical air. Ana Amari. Shooting to kill.

Angela closed her eyes and began teasing her folds again, caught somewhere between memory and fantasy and lacking any desire to escape.

* * *

Torbjörn's workshop didn't inspire in Angela the same awe that it had the first time any longer, but still it remained one of her favorite places on the base. The smell of ash and fire was welcoming now, much more so than the sterile, chemical scent of the medbay. The operating room and the medical wing were Angela's kingdom, but it was difficult to ever truly _relax_ there. But here, in the dim and enclosed confines of the engineer's playground, she felt more at home.

"You're here to interrupt me, eh?" Torbjörn grumbled as he hurried around the room, moving packs of armor to clear space on the wooden table where Angela was sitting. She'd offered to help him before, but he refused each time. Though the place looked a mess, there undoubtedly was a system of organization.

"I did text you," she said, smiling.

"You did, you did," he conceded. "And you brought chocolate. You want anything to drink? Got a kettle somewhere around here."

"Coffee would be nice."

"Don't tell me you've been working—ah, here we go—eighteen-hour shifts again."

Despite the pounding of her head and her reluctance to answer the question, Angela smiled at the sight of the coffee machine her host held aloft. It was, of course, handmade—God forbid he have anything in here that wasn't his own creation. The red handle and heavy bolts on the sides made it look far more intimidating than its purpose could justify. Angela wouldn't have been surprised to discover it doubled as a machine gun.

"When our agents are injured, I need to be there," she said. An automatic response.

"You aren't the only doctor on board. What'll it take for you not to overwork yourself?"

She couldn't see him as he moved about the room, as crammed full of scrap metal and miscellaneous devices as it was. She could only hear his voice grow slightly more muffled, and the sound of cabinets opening and closing, until he returned victorious to the table with a bag of coffee grounds in hand.

"This isn't overwork. How do you think I got through med school? I can handle this. I joined Overwatch to help save lives, and that's what I intend to continue to do."

He grunted.

"So it's surgery and sleep?"

"And I have my research, and target practice when I have time for that."

"'Target practice,'" he snorted. "That's a delicate way of putting it."

"Well, I'm not very good yet, so that's really all it is."

"You mean Ana hasn't whipped you into shape yet? Color me surprised."

 _Ana_ and _whipped_ in the same sentence were dangerously distracting thoughts, but Angela was more concerned about making her mentor look bad.

"She's certainly tried. I'm just...not very good. I don't like it, so it's hard for me." Underneath the table, her hands folded together, tight and anxious in her lap. She looked down. The pristine white of her lab coat didn't fit with the rest of the workshop, where a layer of smoke and ash rested over everything. But the pin on her lapel was the same one that Torbjörn had crafted for her himself, all those months ago when she visited for the first time.

Some things had changed a lot since then. She was a comfortable member of Overwatch now. She had her own quarters in the base. She'd stitched up countless injuries and performed countless surgeries. And, yes, she'd wielded a pistol for the first time, a weapon that was gradually becoming more comfortable in her hands.

But some things hadn't changed at all. Her awe of Ana Amari remained undimmed.

"You don't have to go in the field if you're not comfortable there," Torbjörn said. The coffee machine beeped and he poured them both a mug. Angela, who had long since overcome her distaste for the bitterness, drank hers black.

"I want to," she said. "There have been times—I could be more effective if I was there. Transport time is precious, and..."

"Nobody's blaming you for Reneau."

Angela bit down hard on her lips. She remembered a pale, blood-streaked face, one arm barely hanging on by sinew and muscle, a wound in the torso that had nearly gone all the way through to the spine. They were injuries that did not faze her until the agent was dead, and then they became horrific.

"I know," she said. It wasn't true. Probably nobody else was blaming her for her first loss on the operating table since she'd joined Overwatch. But she blamed herself, and her own opinion mattered so much more than all the rest.

Torbjörn sighed and took a swig from his mug. "And how's your suit coming, then?"

"Quite well," she said, eager to change the subject. "I'm working on the propulsion. I think I'll be able to start running simulations with it soon. And the Caduceus is coming along, though I still need to get it into a more portable form. Maybe another month or two?"

"You ever want another set of eyes looking at the schematics—"

"I know where to find you," she finished, smiling. "I know. Thank you." She took another drink of coffee. Her third cup today, now that she was thinking about it.

"Anything else? Just sleep and surgery and prepping for the field?"

She shifted in her chair. "What are you implying?"

Torbjörn shrugged. "I don't doubt you can handle it. You've pulled off amazing things so far. I'd just sleep a little easier at night knowing you were taking some time for yourself."

"I didn't join Overwatch to take time off," she said, more sharply than she'd intended. She was tired of having this argument, and she suspected he was too. "I didn't become a doctor to take time off. I'm working for others, not for myself."

"That's what worries me," he said, peering at her. He looked as gruff as ever, but Angela knew him too well now. She could recognize the concern, as touching as it was irritating.

"I know you want to look out for me," she said, forcing her tone to soften. "And I appreciate it. But you need to trust me on this. What about you? When was the last time you went home? I know it wasn't Christmas; there was that raid in Nice that kept us all on duty."

"I don't need you griping at me about that," he said. Then, catching her pointed look, he gave a reluctant smile. "All right. Point taken."

"We all know what Overwatch means," Angela said. "We all agreed to this, to giving up something else so we could help save the world."

"As long as you're all right."

She nodded and drank. She was all right.

* * *

"How's she coming?"

"Don't you have anything better to do, Gabriel, than lurk around here?"

"Guess not." He grinned, that maddening grin that made it so difficult to stay annoyed at him, and Ana sighed and smiled as well.

"She's progressed from _abysmal_ to merely _horrible._ I don't even know whether to consider that progress or not."

"Now I really wish you would have let me watch."

"Nonsense. She's already nervous enough without you laughing at her."

"I wouldn't laugh. I have more tact than that."

"Perhaps," Ana conceded.

Evening at the Swiss base was bustling, everyone finished with their work and heading for dinner or the common rooms. The two of them made their steady way from the practice range up to the dorms, where Jack and a night of mission recaps and planning awaited them.

They weren't the only ones in for an all-nighter. A team was returning from Finland after a nasty skirmish with some rogue omnics, which meant that Angela would be working overtime too. When they'd gone their separate ways after practice, just a few minutes ago, the doctor had already looked tired enough. If the circles under her eyes got any darker, she'd resemble a raccoon.

"You know, she never really struck me as the nervous type. If guns make her that uncomfortable, maybe we should just let it go."

"It isn't the guns," Ana said without thinking. When Gabriel gave her a sideways glance, she hurried to catch herself. "Not only the guns. I think it's more the idea of violence. The conflict between what she sees herself as and what I'm trying to teach her. She's loath to—"

"You're flirting with her, aren't you?"

Ana took a deep, patient breath, ground her teeth together, and resigned herself to it.

"...Hm."

Gabriel laughed, a deep, full-bodied laugh that made other people in the hall look around, smiling, wanting to be in on the joke. Ana herself would have found it contagious if it wasn't at her expense. As it was, it was slightly grating.

"No wonder you're not making progress. You want to switch? Maybe she'll do better without you there to distract her."

" _No._ "

Ana was surprised by how much that suggestion rubbed her the wrong way. She imagined Angela's face, deep in concentration as she looked from target to target and prepared to pull the trigger. The adorable way she'd _lean_ into touches when Ana pushed her shoulders down or gently corrected her stance. And the amazement, the _awe_ on her face whenever Ana demonstrated for her.

Who wouldn't enjoy that?

"Just suggesting," Gabriel said, still smirking, holding his hands up in a gesture of mock-defeat. Then his grin faded. "But seriously, she's doing that badly?"

"I don't think it's just me. I think it is, like I was saying before you _interrupted,_ that it doesn't fit with her image of herself. She takes bullets out of people. She doesn't put them in."

"But she really wants to go into the field?"

"Yes. She's determined." And that made Ana think of the other thing about Angela that was so terribly endearing: her commitment. The way she was absolutely absorbed in every shot she took. She devoted herself completely to whatever she was doing. It had been a little alarming, at first, especially since she was so unsure the first time they were on the range together.

Before that, Ana had seen in Angela only the easily-flustered girl who'd visited the base while she was still in med school.

And then there was the first time she'd seen her in action. Ana had arrived back at the base with shotgun pellets in her torso. The biotic emitters had stopped her from bleeding out, but she'd been in bad shape by the time they wheeled her into Angela's domain.

She could only remember bits and pieces of it, but mostly she remembered how _calm_ Angela had been. How confidently she'd commanded herself. How she gave orders to the medical staff like she wasn't the newcomer there. It had been a different person who had pulled the lead from her side than the one she always watched over, nervous and blushing, on the practice range. She looked down at Ana on the bed and seemed to look _through_ her. She saw only the wound, not the woman bearing it.

She'd been wearing glasses. They'd suited her.

"Determination is good, but it can only get you so far."

"Do you think I don't know that? But she's sold on it. This suit of hers. Going into combat alongside us. So I'm working with what I have."

"Not like I'm going to question your judgment. Just let me know if you ever want someone else to give her a hand too. With the shooting, I mean."

"Very subtle, Gabriel. Thank you." Deciding she'd endured enough teasing for the moment, Ana turned the tables. "And how is _your_ protégé?"

"Ugh. Still an idiot. I thought you might manage to scare that out of him."

"You mean to tell me you had ulterior motives when you asked me to give him some pointers?"

"You knew that damn well when you said yes."

"Well, he certainly lost his smart mouth for me quickly enough, so I can only imagine that it's reserved for you. Or maybe even inspired by you."

"I'm just worried it's gonna get him into real trouble someday. He snarked off to Aberman yesterday and I had to stop her from pounding him unconscious."

"'Real trouble?' Like joining a gang and ending up on the wrong side of an Overwatch raid in a cell with you barking questions at him?"

Gabriel grunted, a grin curling his mustache upward. Fond memories, maybe. Ana hadn't been on the Deadlock bust, but all the stories she'd ever heard made her sorry she'd missed out. Gabriel and his crew running circles around the New Mexico desert, almost outgunned by one kid with a revolver and a nasty mouth. Maybe she just wanted the chance to compete with another sharpshooter. Feel the thrill of balancing between life and death again, that elusive euphoria that had vanished since Fareeha.

"It can always get worse," the ever-pessimistic Gabriel responded.

"He'll be all right as long as he has you to watch his back."

They had reached the dorms. Jack's room was at the end of the hall, identified only by the nameplate: _Morrison._ Ana reached out to grab Gabriel's arm before he could knock.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell Jack."

"About—oh. No worries, Amari. That serious, huh?"

"Don't push it, Gabriel."

He just grinned and lowered his fist to the wood.

* * *

She was not all right.

She was at the end of her rope. Frustrated, fed-up, on-edge, distracted, unprofessional, immature. There were a number of things Angela was feeling about herself recently, and few of them were positive. She'd been trying to distract herself, purposefully drowning in her work, spending all her time in the medbay. If it wasn't surgery or routine check-ups or treating any of the minor injuries that cropped up around base on a daily basis, it was her work on the Valkyrie suit.

She could count the hours of sleep she'd gotten in the past week on one hand. She couldn't say the same for the number of agents she'd stitched up, the number of potentially fatal injuries she had negated. There was nothing wrong with throwing herself into her work, even if she was running on caffeine and self-loathing.

If the other medical staff had noticed her state, none of them had said anything. Maybe they just took her for granted now, as much a part of the medical bay as the white walls and beds and IVs. Angela in her office past three AM, muttering to herself as she worked. With her glasses on, she looked decades older than she was. The shadows under her eyes didn't help, either.

Metis had begun asking, whenever Angela scanned in, when the last time she'd slept was. For the most part, Angela ignored the AI. What did it know about her? What did anyone else know about her? About what she was thinking and feeling?

It wasn't the first time she'd gone through this. She'd had similar phases in med school, and even before that. It was an efficient way to cope with stress. Eventually she'd get over it, none the worse for wear. She knew that, so it was hard to be concerned about her own well-being.

It had started with Reneau. Not her first loss during an operation, but her first since joining Overwatch. It had been almost two weeks ago now, but during quiet moments, she still relived the surgery. Had she made a mistake? Cut a little too deeply? Surely there was _something_ she could have done differently. She'd failed, let the agent and the team and the organization down. And even if nobody else blamed her, it was a weight she would carry for the rest of her life. Reneau, joining the ranks of the other ghosts who clung to the hem of her lab coat, weighing her down.

But it hadn't just been Reneau. If it had, it might have been acceptable. Losing someone on the operating table was as good a reason as any for a breakdown. But the real reason, the same pathetic excuse for a distraction that had consumed Angela since the first day she visited Overwatch, was much harder to reconcile to herself.

Ana Amari. Idol. Infatuation. Distraction.

She'd had a conversation with Mei-Ling a few days after Reneau. They'd been in the mess hall at the same time for lunch. Angela usually ate alone, frequently bringing food back to her office, but Mei-Ling had waved her over and invited her to join her. It was impossible to say no to her smile.

"Doctor Ziegler, right? We haven't spoken much. I'm Mei-Ling Zhou."

"Yes, it's good to be properly introduced. I don't think I've seen you in for treatment at all since I started."

"I'm very healthy!" Mei-Ling had laughed. "No, I'm just not doing anything dangerous. Just a scientist, not a fighter."

"That makes two of us. Have you ever thought about...combat training?"

"It's hard not to, when it seems like everyone else is out on the front lines. But I don't know how well I would do. Analyzing data wouldn't come in handy out there." She had gestured vaguely at the windows. The mess hall was one of the rooms on base that peeked out of the mountain, and at that time of day sunlight was streaming in. After Angela's long hours beneath the fluorescents of her office, it was a nice reprieve.

"Is that what you do, then? Data analysis?"

"Mostly. Actually, I'm working on a prototype for a drone for weather control! I've been getting help from Winston—do you know him?"

"Yes. Well, I've seen him around." It was hard to miss Winston; an honest-to-goodness gorilla wandering around the base, wearing glasses and a lab coat, tended to stick out. He was also a fairly frequent sight in the medbay, as Overwatch's staff was still in the process of understanding and continuing his genetic therapy. Angela had tested him before. He was nice, straightforward, answering questions when asked but otherwise rather quiet.

"He's so smart. I think he might have some trouble fitting in, but he's so nice and helpful, too. He told me he's working on updating Metis's protocols. I don't know much about programming, but he makes it sound easy." Mei-Ling shook her head, clearly in awe. "And that's me. How is the life of a doctor?"

"Ha, well...busy," Angela had said, thinking of the night previous, when she'd had three hours' sleep in the chair in her office and woken with a horrible cramp in her neck. "I can't complain. I signed on for this. And I'm doing research on the side, trying to work up to accompanying teams in the field."

"Wow! You're going to be a combat medic?"

"That's the hope. I'm...quite awful at shooting, though, even with Captain Amari trying her hardest to teach me." Already it felt like too much. Saying the name felt like too much, a secret that was obvious in how her tongue caressed it.

"I'm sure you're better than I would be! What is she like? I've never really talked to her, though of course I've heard amazing things."

"She's..." _Say it. Tell the truth._ And she had wanted to, sitting there, with a friendly face across from her. She could tell Mei-Ling. It would be fine to just say it. It wasn't as if the words could hurt her. _She's incredible. She's the best woman I've ever met. I can't stop thinking about her. I'm crushing like I'm twelve years old—_

But to say it aloud would be to admit a truth that Angela was still fighting: that she was, in fact, infatuated. That she'd let her obsession, juvenile and unprofessional as it was, fester under her skin for years now. She should not feel such things, think such things, about a woman who had lain on her operating table. About a woman who outranked her in every way. About a woman who was a mother and a captain and an incredible shot and—

And she did think them, and she did feel them. And even the acknowledgement of that simple fact made the tension curl up in her stomach and her throat. The words died before they could ever come to life, far too humiliating to say.

"She's a very good teacher," she had said, hoping Mei-Ling didn't notice how strained her smile had become.

"They're all so cool, all three of them, aren't they? I hear stories from the first strikes against the omnics, and it's hard to imagine that they're the same people walking in the halls as us! I mean..."

And Mei-Ling had continued speaking, and Angela had ceased listening.

She was realizing now that her infatuation was not going to die of its own accord. It would not be like all her other erstwhile crushes, a fleeting thing that was easily handled by fantasy and time. It was a different monster, feeding on her lust and their every interaction. An obsession, really, and a dangerous one. Who was to say Reneau hadn't been a victim of her _distraction_ —?

Such were the thoughts that had been consuming her. She sat in her office and carefully ran tests with her suit, self-reproach her only companion. She could not sleep. She couldn't even allow herself to shower. Work was the only way to redeem herself for her fantasies, her distractions, to wash her hands clean of the agent's blood.

* * *

Fifteen-forty-five and her laptop's beeping interrupted Angela from her stupor. She'd been ostensibly working on the Caduceus, trying to diagnose a bug in the biotic output, but as her most recent sleep was thirty-six hours ago, it seemed she had dozed off.

Her screen was flashing with a reminder: Ana on the practice range at four. Just seeing the name there made guilt and anticipation coil in her stomach, shame following soon after.

She carefully straightened up her desk, noticing how her hands shook, how her movements were sluggish. Somewhere deep down she knew it was unwise to keep going like this, but that was an easy thought to ignore. She had made incredible progress on both the Valkyrie and Caduceus systems over the past weeks, and if she could just finish them, maybe then she could sleep.

Ana was already there; Angela could see her through the glass windows as she approached Ballistics Range Two. Her mentor was wearing a black tank top. Perhaps she'd come from the gym. Angela took a deep, steadying breath, sternly ordered herself to focus, and scanned in.

"You're overdressed," were the first words out of Ana's mouth, accompanied by a little smile and a raised eyebrow. It was only then that Angela realized she'd left her lab coat on instead of hanging it on her office door, as she usually did.

"I...was cold."

"Hm." Ana looked her up and down, eyes piercing, hawklike. Instead of the usual fluttering in her stomach, though, Angela just felt exposed. She was in a sorry state and she knew it, and she had no doubt Ana could see it too.

"You're disheveled," Ana said mildly. She lifted a hand to play with Angela's (very messy) ponytail. Her fingers left sparks where they traveled. "Were someone's hands in it?"

"What!" Angela flushed, suddenly more awake than she had been. "No, I wasn't—I would never—" _Would you like to?_

"I'm only teasing, habibti. But really, when was the last time you showered?"

It took Angela a few long moments to think of the answer to that question, and the silence seemed to confirm Ana's suspicions.

"The last time you slept?"

Angela looked away, glared down the range at the bots lined up against the wall. She was supposed to be practicing. If she'd just left her coat like usual, Ana wouldn't have noticed. She didn't need an intervention. She could handle herself.

"I've been busy."

"So I see." Ana looked at her a few moments more, studying, considering. Then she turned away, suddenly businesslike. "Well, come on."

But rather than heading for the center of the floor, she walked toward the door. When Angela hesitated to follow, she turned back, a half-smile on her lips.

"Are you coming?"

"Where are we going?"

"Field trip. Something to get the blood flowing." Ana didn't look back again, as if she knew that Angela would follow. Angela would have resented it if she wasn't distracted by the sight of Ana's shoulders, all muscle and warm brown skin.

Out the doors of the practice range, down the hallway to the stairs, and up three floors to the dorms. Ana didn't look back. She led Angela along, and Angela followed, even when she began to suspect where they were headed.

She _was_ surprised that they stopped in front of Ana's door, not her own. Angela looked at the nameplate and found her heart beating faster. Ana's room. Ana scanned herself in, offering Angela a little half-smile as she threw open the door and beckoned her in. Ana was inviting her in.

It was larger than Angela's room, but the space was barren, almost austere. The furniture was military-issue, all sharp edges and bland colors. The bed was made, the desk tidy. Angela recognized the blue jacket slung over the desk chair. There was a duffel bag in one corner. The only welcoming things about the room were the windows and the sun coming through.

Angela stood there, frozen, unsure what was happening. It couldn't possibly be what she hoped it was. But she couldn't stop herself hoping, so she simply stood like a statue lest she ruin the moment herself.

"Now," Ana said, grinning, "Shower."

"Shower?" Angela echoed. "Mit...Ihnen?"

She was unprepared for Ana to understand her, much less for her to chuckle and raise an eyebrow. It was an expression that was hard enough to deal with under ordinary circumstances, much less at Angela's own expense. She found herself blushing, wishing the floor would swallow her.

"No, not with me. Unless you'd like to?" she purred, easy and warm and inviting.

Angela could not formulate a response. She gnawed at her lip and stood still, urging herself to answer _yes, yes,_ please, _Gott—_

But then Ana's smile was changing, and she was leading Angela toward the bathroom door with a gentle hand on the small of her back.

"I'm sorry, habibti. I shouldn't tease. You're going to shower, and then you're going to sleep for as long as you need to."

"Am I?"

She was not a teenager. She did not need looking after. Sleeplessness and arousal bled into anger as Angela stood there and looked at the woman before her. Anger at Ana for trying this, and anger at herself for allowing it. For enabling it. Did nobody trust her to take care of herself? Was she a child to Ana, as much a child as Fareeha?

It was humiliating.

Ana remained unmoved in the face of her sharp words and creased brow. She merely looked at Angela, her face blank and almost uninterested.

"Yes," she said, leaving no room for argument. "Shall I say it as an order?"

Angela stared her down for a moment longer and then, realizing that she was indeed acting every _centimeter_ the petulant teenager, strode into the little en-suite bathroom and closed the door harder than necessary behind her.

She had no choice but to use Ana's shampoo. It felt good to wash herself off, to be clean again, even as the dull ache throbbed and throbbed in her chest. She worked her fingers along her scalp and imagined they were Ana's.

She didn't want Ana to look at her like she was a child. The words from the first time they'd met still echoed in her mind. She felt the stupid urge, still, to prove herself, to assert that she was more than whatever she looked like.

But in the tiny shower, scalding water pouring down on her until the room was filled with steam, the anger dissipated as quickly as it had come. In there, with nothing at all to focus on but her own thoughts, Angela remembered how tired she was. She thought of the weeks past, a blur now of caffeine and endless work. People on the operating table. Her Valkyrie suit underneath her hands. Reneau, eyes roaming desperately about the operating room but seeing nothing, nothing.

Her tears were indistinguishable from the shower water except in her own mind.

She had joined Overwatch to save the world. To save lives. And she had told herself that she would be _perfect, perfect,_ try as hard as she could. That life was within her hands if she fought hard enough. But she hadn't fought hard enough. She'd lost someone, as she'd lost people before. The hundreds of agents she'd stitched back together meant nothing. What mattered was the one she hadn't.

_All the king's horses and all the king's men..._

When at last she emerged, a towel wrapped around her torso, she was fairly confident that her state wasn't too obvious. She couldn't do anything about the shadows under her eyes, but she had waited until her eyes weren't quite so red and puffy.

She had embarrassed herself in front of Ana enough for one day.

Her superior was still there, sitting at her desk and working at her computer, when Angela emerged. She glanced over and then stood.

"Feel better?"

Angela hesitated and then nodded. Feeling clean really did make a difference.

"Here, try these for pajamas," Ana said, holding out a bundle of clothes. Angela accepted them awkwardly with the hand not holding her towel up and shuffled back into the bathroom, where she discovered that she was holding sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. They were soft and comfortable and smelled like Ana.

"Thank you," she said, when she came out again. "I'd prefer my own bed—"

"No," Ana said easily. Once again she met Angela's eyes as if waiting for a challenge. "I'm not letting you sneak back to your office. I've instructed Metis to lock the door after I leave, so you're stuck here for the next sixteen hours."

Angela just looked at her, annoyed but lacking the energy to do anything about it. It didn't help that sleep sounded incredible, or that the sheets surely smelled as good as the clothes she was currently wearing.

"And what about you?"

Ana snorted. "It's five in the afternoon, Angela. I think I'll manage. Besides, it isn't as if there aren't spare rooms. Don't think about me. You do enough worrying about other people. Think about yourself."

Angela sat on the bed. Then, reluctantly, when Ana just raised an eyebrow and refused to move, she slid her legs under the covers and sat with her back to the headboard.

"You expect me to sleep while you stand there and stare at me?"

"Are you shy?"

"So what if I am?"

Ana smiled and shifted upright. "Fair enough. I'll leave you to it. And really do sleep, _habibti_ ; you won't be able to get on my computer." She turned for the door.

Even with the awkwardness of it all, strange clothes and a strange bed in a strange room, and the discomfort of Ana watching her, and the indignation she'd previously felt, Angela realized she didn't want her to go.

She tried to think of something to say. An excuse. A witty remark. Something that would make up for everything. But all that was there was the guilt and shame burning, always burning, in the pit of her stomach. She couldn't be coherent around this woman.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," she blurted. She was alarmed to find that her voice was thick in her throat and her eyes were stinging. She wished she could blame it on the sunlight, could blame it on fatigue, could blame it on anything other than the disaster of a person she was.

Ana looked back, no longer smiling.

"I was supposed to keep it together. I was supposed to be able to look after myself. I—all of you are so strong. I wanted to be a hero too."

"Angela."

"I'm sorry to be like this. To make _you_ see me like this."

"That's enough."

Suddenly Ana was _there,_ sitting on the edge of the bed, staring sternly down at Angela. They were so close together. Angela could reach up a finger and trace the Wadjet where it curved along her cheekbone.

"I won't have you beating yourself up over this," she said. "You think you're the only one who does this? You think I don't have to drag Jack away from his work? Gabriel wouldn't bother sleeping if nobody made him."

She forestalled Angela's objections with a _shhh_ and a single raised finger, which should have annoyed Angela more than it actually did.

"You're used to being self-sufficient. You've been alone for a long time. I know that, _habibti._ And I respect it. But this is Overwatch. We're not coworkers. We're a team. We look out for each other. It's okay to look weak. It's okay to rely on others."

Angela looked away, blinking furiously, trying to get rid of the tears but succeeding only in sending them down her cheeks. How she wished she could let herself believe the things Ana was saying. How she wished the guilt and shame coiled in her stomach like a venomous serpent would dissipate.

Ana's fingers were there, warm and gentle, wiping away the tears. Their faces were very close together. Angela had already hit rock bottom. What else was there to lose?

"Can I rely on you?" she murmured, a question that had nothing to do with the conversation and everything to do with something else entirely.

"Of course," Ana said.

Angela closed the gap.

Ana's lips were as warm as her fingers, and softer too. She didn't pull away as Angela had half-expected. Months of flirting, of a body pressed against her own and a low voice murmuring in her ear, of two women pulling the trigger together. It had been inevitable.

"Angela," Ana whispered, her breath and the tiny movement of her mouth tickling Angela's lips. She didn't pull away, but she didn't lean in, either.

" _Bitte_ ," Angela returned. She tangled a hand in Ana's sleek dark hair and wrapped her other around her shoulders, pressing her body against the older woman's, begging with every inch of her. Her heart was thrumming much too rapidly. It was happening. She was finally doing it.

And finally Ana softened into her touch, parted her lips and explored Angela's mouth with an eager tongue. She pushed her back into the headboard, their noses brushing, her arms keeping Angela safely in place. It felt so perfect there, half-under the sheets, Ana Amari kneeling over her and holding her down as they learned the taste of one another.

When Ana pulled away, Angela's chest was heaving as if she'd forgotten how to breathe, as if she had been drowning in her mentor. She clung to the hem of Ana's tank top with both hands, not wanting to let her go.

"Sleep with me," she said, meaning it in any way and every way. "Stay."

"Not tonight, _ya halu._ You need rest." Ana looked at her for a few seconds, and then she stood again. "Goodnight, Angela."

Once she had gone, Angela slid down and buried herself in the sheets. They smelled like the woman she had just kissed. She could sleep like this. An unfamiliar bed, yes, but one that reminded her of Ana with every breath.

She thought it would take a while to calm down enough to allow for sleep. Her cheeks were still flushed, and the uncomfortable dampness between her thighs made itself known every time she shifted. She replayed the kiss in her mind, over and over, and let her hazy thoughts travel slowly into more and more tantalizing territory. It was in that way that she fell asleep, consumed by Ana Amari.

* * *

The kiss lingered in Ana's mind and on her lips for the rest of the evening. At dinner, with Reinhardt and Jack on either side of her and the mess hall in its usual uproarious state, she was quiet. She was paying no mind to the conversation. Her thoughts were all for the young doctor (hopefully) slumbering back in her room. She thought of how Angela had looked on the training range, her eyes out-of-focus, wandering, lost.

After dinner, the gym. It was even harder to keep herself distracted there. She ran laps around the track and thought of Angela's body pressing up against her, the plea in her voice, her wet hair dripping onto both of them.

Something she hadn't expected. Something to which she wasn't sure how to react. She was certain only that she'd made the right choice in leaving for the night. In the morning, if Angela chose not to mention it, Ana would oblige.

It wasn't like Ana hadn't known about her crush. It was flattering, really, all the blushing and stuttering and worshipful eyes on her. It was more than flattering. She'd encouraged it with quips and stray touches. A game. Just a game. She hadn't expected the doctor to actually do anything. Angela had proven herself bolder than expected. And in the morning...?

Well, she'd have to wait and see.

* * *

The morning started earlier than she would have liked. The previous night had entailed a lengthy and terse meeting with Jack and Gabriel about an upcoming strike, and sleeping in a bed not her own didn't help. When Metis woke her at seven with an alert about a terrorist attack in the southeastern United States, Ana already had a headache.

She had breakfast with her daughter, as usual. Fareeha was taciturn. They hadn't been talking much since Ana had found her asking around for a shooting mentor again. They'd rehashed the same argument they'd had dozens of times before. Every time they had it, Ana felt it slipping more and more from her grasp, but this time had been particularly bad.

_Why not just adopt Jesse? You spend more time with him than you ever have with me._

She'd brushed it off with a _don't be ridiculous, Fareeha,_ but the accusation hadn't stopped ringing in Ana's ears.

They had tiptoed around each other in the weeks since then. Forced politeness, deliberate avoidance of the argument, empty conversation.

"How are your classes going?"

"They're fine. It's all pretty easy, you know."

"Have you talked to your father recently?"

"Sure. We videochatted yesterday. Told me to say hi to you, so, uh, hi from Dad."

"Mm. Anything exciting going on?"

It had been a good question; Fareeha's face lit up with a kind of childish exuberance that was so rare on her these days. Maybe she frequently smiled like that for other people. Ana supposed she wouldn't know as long as she set herself as an antagonist to her daughter's wishes.

"Well, yesterday Winston showed me this program he's writing for Metis to help her analyze and compute new combat strategies. He's demoing it on chess, so he watched me play some. I got him to tell me a little bit about the moon, too. I don't think he likes talking about it, but I can't really blame him. It's fun enough to listen to him talking about his work."

Ana didn't like Fareeha leaving the base alone, even just to go into Zurich. And so her daughter's friends were the same people Ana knew, worked with, commanded. Letting her join Ana on base had been a calculated decision. She missed her, of course, back when she'd lived in Egypt with her father. And Ana had thought then that seeing the reality of Overwatch, the bureaucracy and the danger of it, might quell Fareeha's interest.

It'd had the opposite effect. She looked at her daughter now, across the table, and felt her slipping away. Ana didn't know how to hold on.

Her headache persisted through the morning, which was spent mainly in her office, looking at reports. Jack wanted her to lead a strike in Russia next month, assuming they got U.N. approval. Some personnel shifts, agents reassigned to different bases. Nothing critical. Nothing interesting.

Ana had all but forgotten the night before when, a little after thirteen-hundred, there was a gentle knock on her office door.

"Come on in."

It was Angela who entered, looking noticeably more put-together than she had the last time they had seen each other. She didn't meet Ana's eyes as she came in, instead turning to close and lock (lock?) the door behind her. She was in her lab coat again, but her hair was down around her shoulders instead of pulled up into its usual strict ponytail. The look suited her.

"I wanted to apologize for last night," Angela said.

"You have nothing to apologize for."

"Still, I wanted to make it up to you."

Ana leaned back in her chair, chin resting on one hand. She had some idea of where this was going. Her eyes wandered up and down Angela's lean frame. She was wearing a skirt under her lab coat rather than her usual slacks. She was in heels, and they showed off the curves of her pretty legs.

"Did you come here right after you woke up?"

"Not right after. I wanted to be presentable."

"Are you going to present yourself?"

"If you'd like me to," Angela murmured. Her cheeks were rosy pink, her eyes darting about the room, still unwilling to meet Ana's eyes. Shy, even coming here, doing _this,_ peacocking herself for her superior even so embarrassed as she was.

 _Yes_ , Ana wanted her. She wanted the rookie who shuddered under her touch on the practice range. She wanted the surgeon who stared at and down and through her while sewing her back together. She wanted Angela Ziegler on her knees in front of her, begging for more.

"Come here, then," she said, beckoning with one hand.

The _look_ on Angela's face was enough to make it instantly worthwhile; the lust, the _hunger_ there, her pupils dilated like a cat who had just seen something delicious scurrying across its path. It was different from the shyness. Better than the shyness.

Ana sat back in her chair, keeping space between herself and the desk. Behind her was a bank of glass windows. They were on the fourth floor, but even so...

Angela seated herself on the edge of the desk and began unbuttoning her lab coat with deft fingers. Ana watched, comfortable, patient, as button after button fell open and pale skin blended into white lace, and it became apparent that the white skirt was not a skirt at all.

"You walked here in just that?"

"Do you like it?"

The lab coat slid from Angela's shoulders, slithering onto the desk and finally onto the floor. Neither woman spared it a glance.

Ana let her eyes sweep deliberately up and down Angela's figure. The chemise suited her. So innocent. So _angelic._ Her gaze wandered down to where Angela's thighs were crossed one over the other. Was she wearing panties? It was impossible to tell. And then up, up the lacy patterns of the white garment and up to the shape of her breasts under the cloth, her collarbone a gentle slope against her skin. All that skin, a canvas for the marking. Ana's mouth was watering.

"It'll do," she said evenly, meeting Angela's eyes and watching her shift on the table, surreptitiously rubbing her thighs together. So it was like _that,_ was it? Ana could play along. "Spread your legs."

Angela nodded and almost toppled herself from the desk in her haste to obey. Ana caught her, hands on her waist, feeling her warmth through the cloth. She was reluctant to pull back, even as Angela lifted the chemise with one hand to show off her white lace panties and the outline of what was underneath them.

"Hm."

Ana moved one hand from her waist down to stroke her through the cloth. They were feather-light touches, teasing. She felt a tremor run through Angela. She could feel dampness gathering under her fingertips.

"Please." Angela's voice was breathy and high-pitched. How much of that was real, Ana wondered, and how much a calculated performance?

"What do you want me to do?"Ana ceased the slow movements of her fingers and returned her hands to Angela's waist, easily holding her steady at the edge of the desk. She knew what she wanted to do, a fantasy that began with Angela naked on her knees and ended with her crying Ana's name loudly enough to be heard even through these dense walls. But more than that, she wanted Angela to say it herself, to ask for it, to _beg_ for it.

Angela shook her head. For an instant her eyes met Ana's, and then she cast them shyly downward again.

" _Benutz mich._ "

The office was too warm. Ana flexed her calves, resisted the urge to rub her thighs together. Those two words echoed in her head, beautiful, desperate.

" _Entschuldigung, aber mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut_ ," she lied. Her thumbs rubbed circles above Angela's hipbones. The young doctor's skin was burning, her stomach heaving with her deep and ragged breaths.

It took Angela a few moments to work up the courage to say it. She seemed half-asleep, in a dreamlike state, slow to interpret and slow to respond. Maybe she was just trying to savor every moment.

"I want you to use me," she said, voice barely more than a whisper. "However you'd like."

Ana rolled her desk chair closer to press their bodies together. Her hands slipped upward, underneath the chemise, stroking the soft bare skin of Angela's back.

"You want me to take control, _habibti?_ To take care of you?"

It was like a dam breaking. Suddenly Angela was nodding furiously, biting her lip, furrowing her brow, arching her back and forcing herself closer to Ana just as she had the night before.

"Yes, yes, _please,_ yes."

How was she supposed to resist _that?_

"Sit back," she ordered, and Angela obeyed, shifting herself back onto the desk and shifting her weight to her propped-up arms. Her thighs fell open, displaying herself once again. Ana took full advantage of the silent invitation. 

"Oh, _Angela._ " She couldn't stop herself from sighing, almost blissfully, as she pulled the damp panties down to finally get a proper look at what was underneath. And what a sight it was. Sandy brown curls protected her soft, small lips, which were blushing red and damp already. Her clit, pink underneath its hood, was firm. She was already so _wet,_ the slick of it shining on her folds and smeared in her hair. Ana wanted nothing more than to lean forward and taste it, all of it, to lick up every stray drop, to tease that shy little clit, to bury her tongue in the heat of her.

So she did.

"Captain— _Captain—_ "

And _fuck_ if hearing her tile in that high-pitched, breathy, strangled voice wasn't hot. Ana's own clit was throbbing between her legs. She wanted—needed—to relieve the pressure, but her own fingers _now_ would be much less satisfying than Angela's eager mouth _later_. Ana knew patience well. She wasn't a sniper for nothing.

Angela's hands were roaming as if she didn't know what to do with them, alighting on Ana's shoulders, her head, until she seemed to decide that the edge of the desk was best. Her knuckles were white against the wood.

And Ana was feasting. Angela's curls were surprisingly soft against her lips as she gently nudged her clit, drew her tongue up and down it, pulled it between her teeth and sucked. Above her, another half-choked cry. There was wetness dripping onto her chin, sweet and musky.

"Is that good, _Engel_?" Ana purred. The answer to her question was made obvious by the despairing groan, the buck of Angela's hips as she sought out that delicious friction once more.

"None of that. Good girls stay _still._ " She put a bit of a snarl on the last word and was happy to see it paid off when Angela whined, closed her eyes, and nodded fervently. Her desperation was so cute. Her cheeks were flushed pink with pleasure or embarrassment. It was enough to make Ana sit up in her chair, her hands running up and down Angela's smooth skin.

"Would you like a taste too?"

Angela, it seemed, couldn't move her chin up and down fast enough. Ana chuckled and leaned in to meet her lips. It was a kiss like the one they'd shared the night previous, but sloppier, filthier.

Ana forced a hand between their bodies, her fingers searching for the place her mouth had previously occupied. She twined the curls about her knuckles and flicked the clit waiting, hard and eager, for her. Angela was still soaking, gushing wetness the longer Ana kept her fingers moving. She moaned into the kiss. When they at last broke apart, Ana was treated to the sight of Angela looking positively _drunk,_ eyes glazed and swollen lips half-open as she panted and jerkily rode her superior's fingers.

"Do you like the taste?" Ana said, pulling her hand from between Angela's thighs with a _squelch_ , relishing the immediate whimper of protest the other woman let loose. She lifted her hand to show off her dripping fingers. "So wet. So eager for me, Angela."

She watched Angela's eyes fix on her hand, her pupils blown black and hungry, her throat constricting as she swallowed.

"What do you want?" she asked again, leaning back in her chair once more, observing Angela with a rote indifference that belied her own arousal.

Angela licked her lips. She looked like an animal like this, so desperate, lacking the poise and dignity with which she always carried herself. She was lovely, every inch of her, trembling and obedient and open for Ana.

"I want your fingers," she said, voice husky. "To—clean them."

" _Do_ you?" Ana chuckled. An easy enough wish to grant. She traced her fingertips over Angela's lips before slipping into her mouth, pressing down on her tongue and reaching for the back of her throat. It was warm and hot and constricting around her, almost as good as her cunt.

Then she gagged, and Ana quickly withdrew.

"I'm sorry, _habibti._ I should've been more careful." She stroked a careful hand up Angela's cheeks, brushed a few stray pieces of hair from her forehead.

Angela coughed a little and shook her head. "No, no, don't be. I—don't mind it."

"What an eager thing you are," Ana murmured, and the flush that stained Angela's face and neck was just as beautiful as the rest of her. "Still, let me make it up to you."

And she held Angela's hips firmly in place as she shifted her chair backward and leaned down to properly finish what she'd started.

The young Doctor Ziegler was beautiful when she came, her head thrown back in a choked-off cry, her nipples visible through the white silk that hid them, her cunt pulsing and gushing about Ana's tongue. Her whole body shook and shivered through the aftermath. Ana continued her steady ministrations until she'd swallowed every last drop, and only then did she straighten up.

Despite what they'd just done, or perhaps because of it, Angela's shyness seemed to have returned. She cast her eyes downward and shifted in place on the desk.

"Thank you."

"Thank _you_ ," Ana returned. "Better lunch than I had earlier."

"Hardly nutritious."

"Well, it's true that you have taken me away from my work," Ana said, looking Angela up and down. "And I really need to get back to that."

Angela's face fell for just a moment, and then she was masking her disappointment and sliding off the desk.

" _But—"_ Ana forestalled her—"if you don't mind kneeling, I wouldn't mind company."

Angela's face lit up again as she hurried to nod.


	2. Ambrosia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a returned love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for the bad puns.

Angela sat obediently in place and contemplated the reasons for the invention of the shower seat. Its ubiquity throughout the base's washrooms was a necessity for agents who had been injured or were missing limbs. It certainly hadn't been placed there for her to recline and wait eagerly for the appeasement of her fantasies, but that seemed to be the purpose the little plastic chair in Ana's shower was destined to serve.

"You're sure about this?" Ana asked again. She was at the sink, sleeves rolled up, running warm water over the washcloth.

"Yes," Angela said thoughtlessly. She spread her thighs in a useless attempt to assuage the bittersweet ache between them. The shower walls were cold against her bare skin. She felt like an object on display. If only Ana would turn and _look_...

"I'll be careful, but I can't promise I won't cut you," Ana said, at last turning off the water and joining Angela in the small shower. It was hardly big enough for both of them, but with Angela on the small chair and Ana kneeling on a towel, it worked.

"I trust you," Angela said. She leaned back and opened her knees as far as her hips would allow, showing herself off.

"Trust me with a rifle, not with a razor," Ana muttered.

"With both."

Ana shook her head, but at last she was raising the washcloth. It was warm against Angela's thighs as Ana washed her with gentle strokes. She took her time. Angela said nothing, content to acquiesce to Ana's pace. She closed her eyes and focused only on the feeling of the damp cloth soothing against her skin. It was a surprise, then, when it finally slid over her lips. She was glad for the barrier of the washcloth; like that, Ana couldn't tell how wet she already was.

She hadn't known what to expect when, after their most recent tryst, she'd finally gotten up the nerve to ask.

_"I want you to shave me."_

Ana had raised an eyebrow, accompanied with that little smirk of hers.

_"I like your hair."_

Which had been flattering, but was ultimately a compliment that did less for Angela than imagining this moment. And now, like so many of her other fantasies, it was no longer confined to the realm of her imagination. She was here at Ana's mercy, naked, spread open for her. Better than her dreams.

"All red and pretty," Ana said. Her other hand joined the washcloth, her fingers dragging through Angela's folds, flicking her clit and petting the flushed skin around her labia. Angela shuddered, the teasing ministrations just enough to make her cunt pulse and release more wetness.

"But we shouldn't get distracted." Ana wiped her damp fingers on Angela's skin and returned her hand to one knee, keeping her open, continuing her gentle rubbing with the wet cloth. The stimulation was enough to keep Angela on edge. Her arms, gripping the seat beneath her, were covered in goosebumps, and her nipples were stiff peaks.

When she had been prepared suitably, and when her curls were damp and sticking to her skin, Ana traded the washcloth for the shaving cream. It was cold after the warmth of the cloth, and Angela couldn't help shifting uncomfortably.

"Hold still," Ana said, holding the razor threateningly aloft. It was an old-fashioned one, a silver blade that glinted in the light. Angela obeyed, though the chill still prickled at her skin.

Despite her warnings, the first stroke was smooth and clean, and the next, and the next. Angela watched, fascinated, as Ana rinsed the razor and went back again, as the coarse hair fell away beneath the blade and left swathes of tender reddish skin behind. Exposed, just like the rest of her.

She lifted her hands from her grip on the chair to play with her breasts. It felt good to pinch and pull at her nipples, but it didn't help the insistent ache of her clit. Nor did Ana's fingers, efficiently spreading and pulling at her skin to allow better access for the razor. She skirted her most sensitive places as if deliberately teasing her, fingers brushing her clit or stroking the tight clench of her anus. It was too much, touching without touching, and it took all Angela's control to remain in place on the seat and not to grind her hips down.

Ana seemed to notice. Her strokes became ever-so-surely _slower,_ more purposeful, treading over already-visited territory. Angela squirmed, bit her lip, kneaded and abused her breasts, as turned-on by the thought of putting on a show as she was by the physical stimulation.

After much too long of this torture, and yet altogether too soon, the job was done. Angela's cunt gleamed, soapy and wet and naked, in the over-bright fluorescents of the bathroom. Ana rinsed the last of the hair down the drain and lifted the washcloth again to clean off the last of the shaving cream.

"Prettier now," Angela murmured. "Do you like it?"

Ana tilted her head to one side, inspecting, observing. She languidly glanced up at Angela before returning her attention downward. She stroked her fingers across the newly-shaven mound, her touch even more electric than it had been before.

"Certainly a better view," she conceded, sitting back on her knees. "Show it off."

Angela was eager to obey. One hand abandoned her breasts in favor of sliding between her thighs, over the dimpled skin, spreading her lips open for Ana's benefit.

"Good girl. Touch yourself."

Angela indulged with pleasure. How often she had masturbated with this very scene in her mind, pretending Ana was watching her, and now those steady hawk-like eyes were fixed on her blushing cunt and her fingers as they slipped over her clit and thrust into her wet entrance. She tilted her head back against the tile and continued, two, three fingers pumping in and out. The sound of her panting and the lewd squelching were the only noises in the bathroom, at least until Ana spoke again.

"That's enough."

With her clit left aching, Angela pulled her hand away. She stared down at Ana in a futile attempt to beg with just her eyes, to convince the captain to let her finish. But Ana, in this as in all things, was not to be swayed. She met Angela's gaze with a warm smile and pushed herself off the floor to stand over her.

"I can't have you getting spoiled," she said, before leaning down for a kiss.

* * *

" _Xuě_..."

" _Xuě qiú_!"

" _Xuě qiú_?" The syllables were unfamiliar as she tried to wrap her tongue around them, tried to imitate Mei-Ling's pronunciation as best as she could.

"There you go! _Xuě qiú_."

" _Xuě qiú_ ," Angela tried again. "Snowball. Does it respond to its name?"

"Oh, no, no. It's not smart enough for that. I just wanted to give it one. It's cute, isn't it?"

They looked together down at the little drone lying inert on the table. It was small enough to fit in one hand, though surprisingly weighty. Angela hadn't seen it active yet, just watched Mei-Ling carefully fit a small tank inside of it and hook wires into their proper places.

"I suppose," she said, though _cute_ wasn't really an adjective she herself would have ascribed to the weather drone.

"What would it be in Swiss?"

"What would—oh! _Schneeball_."

" _Schneeball_ ," Mei-Ling attempted, face stern in concentration before she gave up and giggled. "I'm sorry, it just sounds funny to me. _Schnee_ is snow, then?"

"Yes. _Schneewittchen_ —Snow White."

"You'll have to help me with that. Whenever I go into the city, I always have to bring someone. I get so nervous on my own, not knowing German and with my English so weak."

"It's not," Angela assured her. "It's wonderful. But if you'd like me to teach you some, I'd be glad, especially if you help me with Mandarin. _Xuě qiú_."

"Oh, sure! Maybe we can go into Zürich together sometime. I'm sure you'd be a great tour guide."

"Actually, I—well, I don't know Zürich that well," Angela said. The conversation was getting away from her. "I'm from Lozärn—er, Lucerne, a city a bit to the south of here."

"I don't think I've been there."

"It's lovely," Angela said, and meant it. "The lake, and the mountains...of course, Zürich is beautiful too, but not quite the same."

"The Alps?" Mei-Ling's face seemed to light up. The way she had of radiating enthusiasm was endearing, infectious, if not sometimes a bit much. "I'd love to go climbing. If we weren't so busy here, I would love time off to just go hiking, rock-climbing, skiing..."

"Yes, that sounds nice," Angela said, offering a not-entirely genuine smile as she attempted to pull the discussion back into comfortable boundaries. "So the drone—Snowball—it produces snow flurries?"

"Oh! Yes. Well, if it's all come together okay. I've still got to run some tests. It's also got some programs to just collect and store weather data, and Winston wants to maybe update its interface. Maybe I _could_ ask him to install a name-recognizing program!"

"I'd be interested to see it in action," Angela said, reaching out a tentative hand and then, when Mei-Ling nodded eagerly, touching the smooth chrome. It was as warm as the room around them, which made it difficult to imagine the little bot whipping up snow.

"Sure! I'll tell you when I'm running tests, if you like! And your suit—I'm sure it'll be amazing, too," Mei said, turning her attention to the wings that lay on the table beside Snowball. Black and exposed, they looked like the exoskeleton of some giant insect. Angela was almost ashamed to show them off. Her work of the past months looked suddenly childish, sloppy, destined to failure.

"I'm afraid it'll be a while," she sighed.

"If anyone can do it, it's you," Mei-Ling said, leaning in closer to inspect the wires running through the wings and connecting them to the panel that housed the power unit and the small computer. "I've read some of your research papers. The one about treating fresh wounds with nanobes? There was a translation. Most of it went over my head, but—it's amazing."

"You've done amazing things yourself, haven't you? They still use the data from your climate surveys. And—what was it? You were on Time's most influential people a few years back, if I remember correctly."

"Well, that," Mei-Ling said, cheeks reddening, "that was really a mistake. There are dozens of other researchers here who would have deserved it more."

"You deserved it," Angela said. "Your work was incredible."

"Um." Mei-Ling adjusted her glasses and bit down on her lip as if to hide her smile before turning back to the wings and tracing along where a 'feather' met the main body. "So how far along is it?"

"I've got the program that reads for vital signs in the vicinity running all right, but I need a way to magnify the signal, and then to get the propulsion system working. The problem is mostly fitting it into a compact form. I've asked Torbjörn for some help, and he's working on engine prototypes..."

When Angela looked up, Mei-Ling was smiling at her.

"What is it?"

"I'm glad to talk to you. And I'm glad that you seem happier now."

"Do I?"

"I don't know you that well, so I don't want to make assumptions, but before you seemed really stressed out. But now you look better. I'm glad."

Was the change in her demeanor that obvious? It was true that Angela'd been feeling considerably less stressed ever since she started spending odd afternoons eagerly submitting to Ana Amari. It wasn't just the orgasms, either, nice as they were; it was the feeling of giving up control, of not having to think or feel or do anything except obey.

She shivered inadvertently, even in the pleasant temperature of the lab.

"Well, thank you for your concern," she said, and then added, "I'm glad too."

* * *

The weight of the completed suit upon her felt odd. She had intended it to be easy to wear, but as soon as she put it on the first time she could tell it would take some time to get used to. The wings, especially, put her off-balance, and as she moved about her room she kept worrying they would bump into things. The halo didn't help, hanging over her forehead, and it would be heavier when she hooked it up with her communicator as she intended.

"Elegant," was Ana's first comment. Her face gave nothing away from where she leaned against the wall by Angela's computer station. "You take the motif seriously, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

Angela turned to the mirror and looked herself up and down. She quite liked the blue—it matched Reinhardt's battle armor, which she'd liked immediately since seeing it the first time. As it was, the wings hung limp and lightless; activating the suit in such a small space seemed a bad idea. But even without them spread behind her, as she'd envisioned them, she liked the reflection looking back at her. Better than her lab coat. Better than scrubs. Something more suitable for an agent of Overwatch.

"A halo? Really? _Engel_ is a pet name, Angela, not a title."

She turned away from the mirror to look at her mentor, even though she could see her perfectly well in the reflection.

"I like it," she said.

Ana shrugged. "Suit yourself. ...Literally and figuratively."

Angela chuckled and turned back to the mirror. It was the same person who looked back at her, but she didn't quite appreciate the view as much as she had the first time.

As it turned out, the Valkyrie required more tinkering and a good deal of practice one on of the base's many training grounds. In her first attempts Angela had asked Torbjörn to be her guinea pig, but after a few over-eager propulsions bowled them both over, the engineer had quit and volunteered Reinhardt instead. With him, when the wings went too far, Angela merely bounced ineffectively off of his massive girth rather than ending with both of them in a crumpled pile.

Her practice sessions became something of a spectacle for those in the know until she finally put her foot down and banned everybody after one particularly disastrous afternoon which ended with her falling on her face and Jack bent double over the railing from laughing too hard.

But it came along, her adjustments getting smaller and smaller until at last she could almost always land where she wanted. She watched Metis's security recordings of her sessions and felt pride bloom warm in her chest.

With every success, trepidation came hand-in-hand with triumph. The suit functioning properly meant that soon she would be out of excuses to herself for no longer going on missions. With the Caduceus in its final stages as well, the day when she would fly out with a strike team loomed closer and closer on the horizon, and the pit in her stomach grew accordingly.

Belarus. A defunct omnium showing suspicious signs of activity, according to Blackwatch intelligence. She studied maps of the surrounding territory, blueprints of the building itself, until the images were graven in her mind. She would have a solid team with her, headed by Reinhardt. They were prepared, and there was nothing to be afraid of.

She told herself that as anxiety swelled like a turgid balloon in the back of her mind, when the merest thought of the mission was enough to open a pit in her stomach and set her hands shaking, as three weeks away became two weeks away became days away. Then she found herself running on empty again, spending nights in the medbay or in her office, in the laboratory, examining every inch of her suit for flaws.

And so it was one afternoon, just three days before the mission's start, that she was working in her office in-between operations when an unexpected knock interrupted her.

It was Torbjörn. His ash-smudged clothes and face looked extraordinarily out-of-place in the sterile white hallway of the medical wing, and he looked as grumpy as ever, but neither of those things mattered. She was happy to see him.

"Did you need something?" she asked, hurrying to offer him a chair and wishing she had more food besides granola bars in her desk.

"Just checking in. Your first time in the field; it's a big deal." He ignored the chair in favor of striding about the office. She wasn't used to visitors here, and was suddenly very aware of the papers strewn about her desktop and the tottering pile of medical volumes by the door. No pictures; few personal effects. She had few events in her life that warranted eternal reminiscence through a photo on her desk.

"Don't remind me."

"Oh, I don't mean for you. You'll be fine and you know that. But for everyone else, seeing our little medic growing up and joining the strike team." He smiled.

"I'd wait until after I come home safe to tell me you're proud of me."

"Proud? Who said proud? I didn't say proud."

She smiled as well. "No, I suppose you didn't."

"And how's—well, how're you feeling about it?" He squinted at her, his smile disappearing again. "You seemed to be doing better there for a while, but now you've got that look again."

"What look?" She glanced self-consciously down at herself, at the immaculate white of her lab coat and her scrubs underneath it, and wished for a mirror.

"Like an engine 'bout to overheat. Like you're running yourself too hard."

This amused her. "Do I look like a machine to you?"

Something flickered behind his eyes. He looked away. "Nah."

The topic was not one she was eager to rehash. She had enjoyed the absence of inquiries into what she called her duties and others called overwork, and she also knew exactly why they had ceased. Ana Amari was no longer a distraction. Now she was simply a fact. And Angela couldn't think of many better ways to let off steam than to kneel under her superior's desk and make good use of her mouth while Ana worked.

Apparently stress relief through sex had its limits, though, if the past week was any indication. Ana's touch was as electric as ever, the orgasms leaving her as limp and satisfied, but the panic returned when she went to bed alone.

She didn't want to talk about her nerves, not to Ana and not to anyone. They were embarrassing, something she should have been able to control but couldn't. She was surrounded by people who went into the field on a weekly basis. The sniper had been on deadlier missions, looked death in the eye and come out anyway, and Angela was paralyzed by the thought of a low-stakes assignment where she in all likelihood wouldn't even have to draw her pistol.

She wanted to be better than that. And if the anxiety wouldn't dissipate because she refused to acknowledge it, then the least she could do was hide it from everyone around her.

But there Torbjörn was, seeing through her façade as easily as if she was one of his contraptions malfunctioning and requiring repairs.

She tapped her fingers on the desk, on a paper that happened to contain the readings from her latest test with the Caduceus staff.

"I'm nervous," she said.

"Yeah? Well, it's something new. Don't know what to expect. But you'll be fine. Worst comes to worst, just hide behind Wilhelm's shield and we'll get you airlifted out."

She smiled. Somehow it helped. He was good at that.

"I don't even know why. We've run simulations. I've practiced as much as I can. I'll have good people with me."

"Well, you aren't a machine, Ziegler. Not like diagnosing a broken engine; there's not always a good reason for emotions." He looked around the office, the cell of a room. "Look, being cooped up in here by yourself can't be helping. Let's go get lunch."

"I have a surgery in half an hour."

"Quick lunch," he said, unwavering, and she was not too stubborn to give in and go through the office door when he opened it.

"Thank you," she said.

"What're you thanking me for?" he said, mustache twitching upward.

* * *

After sitting in meetings all day and one particularly annoying phone call from the UN that Jack had been too busy to deal with, time to herself on the simulation range was heavenly. Just her, out here, and the rifle in her hands. The noises of the bots roving around the course became background noise, as did her own shots ringing out. She entered a different mindset, one where the only thing that mattered was pulling the trigger.

The Crisis had been hell, but nostalgia made it seem nicer than paperwork and bureaucracy, fighting a singular threat instead of the insidious danger of human enemies lurking around the globe. And so it was on the range, just bot after bot falling victim to her peerless aim as she shifted from perch to perch, hardly even winded.

A bad day. No good news on any front. No report back from Gabriel and his team, laying low somewhere near Numbani. Gérard lacking any new leads on his pet project. And another UN audit upcoming amidst negative public outcry after more civilian casualties got caught in the crossfire. Ana could see the editorials already: _A POST-OVERWATCH WORLD?_ splashed across the latest photo of Jack grimly addressing the Security Council.

She read the articles. She always did. They ate Jack up too much, and Gabriel couldn't get through three paragraphs without scoffing and abandoning the story, but she read them.

She didn't entirely disagree with them, either. Part of her thought that having to ask whether the organization was still necessary was a sign that it wasn't. They had formed to end the Crisis, and now it had ended. What were they still playing at? Now they were something else, an aimless coalition for good, real objectives mired in the past.

Maybe that was all just self-justification. Maybe she had another, more personal reason for feeling ambivalent about the end of the organization to which she'd devoted herself.

A reason that took the form of her daughter.

She kept these thoughts to herself. As long as Overwatch still existed, it needed to be wholly committed to its duty. Waiting on tenterhooks for the end would only usher that end in all the quicker.

The last round in the magazine found its final resting place in the chassis of a bot to her right, and Ana sat back to take a breather for a few seconds instead of reloading.

The range was open-air, but nights weren't yet cold enough to force her into a jacket. The wind rustled through her hair as she stood and walked over to the railing. It was a beautiful sight in the darkness, with rows of lit windows dug into the cliff below her giving way first to shadow and then to the more distant lights of Zürich. The city was a cluster of yellow luminance down in the valley.

Of all the places she'd been, Switzerland wasn't really a favorite. She was looking forward to receiving her next assignment and going somewhere different for a change. This country, nestled among mountains, felt almost like a cell. There was something about it that had rubbed her the wrong way ever since the first time she'd come. Maybe it was just the difference between here and home, the substitution of snow for sand.

The Crisis had been rough here. Omnics didn't care about neutrality.

She sighed and hefted up her rifle once more, ready to resume, when a voice calling across the range interrupted her.

"Ana!"

There was a figure up by the sliding doors leading back into the base and the mountain. When Ana squinted, she could just make out the figure of Jack framed against the light coming through the doors.

"What is it?" She slung the gun over her shoulder. If he'd bothered to come find her, that meant practice was over.

"Thought I'd find you here. We're meeting downstairs; you weren't answering your communicator. The Belarus team is sending a distress signal."

In fact, she'd left her communicator in the pocket of her jacket, slung over the railing by the door, which she retrieved as they hurriedly passed it.

"Sorry—oh, _shit._ Casualties?"

"None that I know of. They just encountered unexpected combatants. That's really all I know; last I checked, we were trying to establish a line with Reinhardt."

Jack led her at a quick pace, almost a run, down the utility stairs and to the little meeting room tucked away on B-3. Torbjörn was there, looking even less happy than usual; and Gérard, sprawled across two chairs and in his pajamas. The monitors were dark, but the interactive screen of the tabletop was alive with information.

"What've we got?" Jack said at once, seating himself beside Gérard. Ana followed more slowly, trying to make sense of the many tabs open on the display.

"Jack?" Reinhardt's voice, only a little staticky, boomed out, seemingly from the tabletop itself.

"Yes! We're here. What's going on out there?"

"Give me a minute. I'm holding— _rrrraah! Take that, you scraps!—_ this isn't—Gesano, can you—?"

"This is Gesano," a different voice cut in smoothly, though the sounds of Reinhardt bellowing as well as scattered gunfire were still quite audible in the background. "We're engaging omnics, about twenty—no real dangerous models, just some SBs—minor injuries."

"Engaging? You approached the omnium in the dark? Your orders were to run recon, not even push forward until tomorrow." Jack's stress stood out on his face, wrinkles making him look much older than he was as he glared down at the table.

"Yessir—sorry, we were following protocol, but we got ambushed about twenty minutes ago. We've cleared out some, but there's only three of us here. Yao and Aldritt got separated. We've got 'em on comms, but we can't group up until we get rid of the last ones here."

"So the omnium is in use again," Ana murmured. There was a knot in her stomach tying itself tighter and tighter, a knot that had been present since that morning, when a transport ship carrying the team had departed.

 _You will be fine,_ she had told Angela. And now she imagined them, a team huddled under the blue glow of Reinhardt's shield, lost in the woods to the east of Minsk. If Angela died, it would be a personal failure, an inability to teach her enough. If only she'd spent more time having her perform aiming drills and less time drilling her...

Torbjörn brought her back to the room and the present, where the worst had not yet occurred.

"Nah, can't be. I looked at the readings they sent earlier. There's no way it could be up and running without giving off some kind of electrical signal. That plant's dead."

"Where did the bots attacking them come from, then?" Jack snapped.

Gérard sat upright suddenly, over-intense gaze fixing on each of them in turn. "She said ambush, didn't she? It's a trap. Lure in a team and take them out. I'm telling you, it's the same as it was in Tunisia."

"We have no proof that was an orchestrated attack. You can't blame everything that goes wrong in the world on this imaginary enemy of yours—"

"Tunisia?" There was a new voice on the comm, sharp and Swiss-accented and familiar. "You think the omnic uprising in Tunisia was instigated by an outside group?"

There was an awkward silence in the conference room. Jack was glaring at Gérard; the latter merely shrugged and gestured at the table.

"Ziegler, this is not the time for this," Ana stepped in, attempting to salvage the situation. "Listen to me. Do you need eva—?"

"We lost an agent in Tunisia. I couldn't—"

"This is not the time to be thinking about Reneau! You have agents there with you who need your help _now. Listen to me: do you need evacuation_?"

There was a brief pause. Ana could imagine the young doctor, pale in the blue light, biting her lip. Was there blood on her hands? Had she been wounded? Had all the effort she had poured into her suit been worth anything at all?

"...I'm sorry, Captain Amari. No, I don't think so. We're handling ourselves fine. After we clean up the rest of the bots, we'll regroup."

"Leave them to me!" Reinhardt roared suddenly over the channel again, so loudly and abruptly that everyone in the room leaned back from the table. Gérard jumped a few inches, looking like a startled rabbit.

"We'll stay in touch," Angela promised, and for a few seconds the only sounds on the other end of the line was the muffled rattling of gunfire and unintelligible voices. Then, without warning, there was a crash like thunder that drowned out everything else. Metis's audio controls dampened the sound, but even so, it was massive enough that Ana could have sworn she felt the floor of the meeting room shake under her feet. Even after the line cut out, the silence seemed to echo with a _boom._

She knew that kind of sound; they all did. And a glance around the room at the faces of her comrades showed that they were all thinking the same thing. Jack looked panicked; Torbjörn furious; Gérard like he no longer knew how to move the muscles of his face.

Jack was the first to recover. When the roar had diminished, he was barking into the line once more.

"What was that? Ziegler? Gesano? Reinhardt? Someone come in!"

The silence stretched longer and longer, long enough for Ana to imagine losing them. Overwatch had never seen the loss of a whole team on a mission. They were too good for that, too efficient, too strong. But now the rising star of their medical team was KIA, and _Reinhardt..._

Then the line crackled back into life, and all of them breathed again.

"This is Gesano," the agent ground out, sounding noticeably less composed than she had minutes ago. "Shit—um, that must've been the omnium. We had just about cleared out those fuckers— _shit!_ I can't—"

"Reinhardt here." His voice, too, was weaker. "Jack, the omnium exploded. The whole thing. We were closer than we realized. No more hostiles, but we all got thrown back. Gesano's bleeding, looks pretty bad."

"Well, is Ziegler there or not?" Jack said, undoubtedly angrier than he had intended. His hands were drawn into fists on the tabletop. It killed him, Ana knew, hearing combat and danger through a communication line, unable to lead his troops in person, see their faces, dive in front of bullets for them. What was he now? A commander in title, wearing his fancy coat and sitting safe in the base while agents risked their lives in the field.

"I'm here," Angela came in. "I'm—I'll look after her. She'll be fine. I have this."

"Sir, comm Yao and Aldritt," Gesano said, speaking through gritted teeth. "They were closer than us, I think."

Jack nodded, apparently forgetting that the connection didn't allow for video, and relayed the command to Metis.

"Their communicators are no longer transmitting," the AI said, her tone much too crisp and calm for the current situation.

"Can you give us last-known coordinates, at least?"

"Certainly."

The screen shifted to a birds-eye view of the countryside, pulsing blue dots demarcating each communicator's position. There was the cluster of three, and then, to the north, two more dots. Gesano was right. The other two had been closer to the epicenter. If the force of the explosion had been enough to send the other team flying...

"Sir?" Gesano's voice crackled across the line, pleading, desperate.

Jack closed his eyes and shook his head. "Just worry about yourself."

"Please, send me their coordinates!" It was Angela again, just as urgent. "This is why I'm here. We have to see, at least. We need to try. That explosion will have taken out any hostiles, too. I just need—there has to be something I can do."

Ana watched Jack.

"It is why we sent her," she said quietly.

"God damn it, fine," he burst out. "Ziegler, stabilize Gesano, and then you can track down the other two. I'll send you their last-known coordinates. Reinhardt, go with her. We'll get your transport home standing by. And stay in touch."

"Yes, Sir!" Reinhardt boomed, drowning out Angela's quieter acquiescence.

The line clicked into silence, leaving the room feeling hollow and empty. The four of them avoided eye contact. Jack was typing on his phone, Torbjörn scrutinizing the data they'd received earlier that day. But Gérard was sitting back in his chair, smiling grimly.

"I told you," he said.

* * *

The explosion of a defunct omnium in Belarus featured prominently in the news the next morning. After a largely sleepless night, Ana found it hard to look at the footage of the smoldering wreck, particularly when the newscasters began discussing Overwatch's involvement.

"It's not your fault," she told Jack, who joined her over breakfast to watch the news.

"Maybe it is," he said. "If Gérard was right, and we've got someone out there targeting us, I should've been more careful."

"Something to think about next time. Regret won't change anything. And we didn't have casualties. That's something."

"Yeah. If only knowing that stopped me from feeling guilty." He looked away from the screen, focusing instead on his mug of coffee. "I wish Gabe—wish he'd have been here. He knows how to deal with this shit. We'll have to send one of his teams in to scout out the omnium and see if they can find anything in the ruins."

"He'll be back soon enough. In the meantime, Jack, you want me to work with Gérard and do some poking around?"

"Sure. Tell me what you dig up."

The transport carrying the team home arrived that afternoon. Ana lingered by the doors leading out to the helipad to watch it land. The medical staff rushed to meet it, throwing open the doors and wheeling out two stretchers. Two agents, weak but alive. Then Gesano, limping a bit but waving off the nurse who tried to help, one side bandaged. Reinhardt, for his part, looked none the worse for wear, though as ever his armor made it difficult to tell.

And finally Angela, still wearing that blue suit, looking attentively after the others. She caught sight of Ana standing there, and then she smiled. She was beautiful. Ana couldn't help, even weary as she was, smiling as well.

That evening saw them together in Ana's room. Angela was all too eager to lay on the bed in nothing but her lingerie, keeping her mouth busy while Ana leaned against the headboard and answered emails on her tablet. It was hard to stay focused with Angela's face cradled between her thighs, her soft hair brushing Ana's skin and her cheeks pink as she suckled her clit and dragged her tongue through her folds. Generally her ministrations made for pleasant background noise, a tingle of pleasure at the edge of Ana's awareness, but tonight was different. Angela had been getting better, for one. For another, she looked down at her and thought of what the night before had been like for her. Her first time in the field, gone so terribly wrong, but she'd held it together. Gesano might have been all right if she hadn't been there, but the same couldn't be said for the other two.

"Angela," she said, reaching down to stroke the blonde's hair away from her face. She looked up, mouth still working but blue eyes wide and waiting. The sight was equally as arousing as her tongue. "Did you use your pistol at all?"

Angela paused, then shook her head, slowly, looking almost guilty.

"It's all right; you may speak."

She pulled back, pushed herself up on her forearms. Her lips were swollen and shiny with spit, her chin damp. It was a good look on her.

"The other two seemed to be doing fine on their own. And in the dark, I didn't know...I was worried about hitting them, or hitting the others. I'm sorry. Maybe I could have—"

"Don't apologize, _habibti_ ," Ana interrupted. She cupped Angela's chin and traced her lips with a thumb, continuing to gently pet her hair. "I'm not angry, just curious. If you didn't feel you needed it, that's better, isn't it?"

Angela nodded, cheeks pink.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

At the invitation, words began to spill from Angela's mouth. "The Caduceus worked well, I think. And when the explosion went off, I activated my wings without thinking about it. The propulsion offset the blast, so I didn't get thrown back like the other two. I couldn't believe it had actually worked like I had designed. I expected something to go wrong."

She was not reacting as Ana had expected. She had expected exhaustion, terror, self-flagellation. She didn't expect smiling and eagerness, a hand pulling her to bed, Angela forcefully disrobing while light gleamed behind her pretty blue eyes.

"Something did go wrong," Ana chuckled. She swiped her thumb over Angela's chin a final time before tracing the column of her throat, her collarbones, her breasts plump and pale and full under Ana's questing hand. Angela leaned into the touch. "None of what happened last night was supposed to happen. We have three agents in the medbay."

The smile vanished from Angela's face as the weight of what Ana was saying crashed onto her shoulders. Ana watched it happen, watched her slump, as she continued to roll a nipple idly between her fingers.

"I meant in terms of the suit. And they—they didn't die. They'll be all right. A few weeks to let the burns heal completely..."

"I'm not scolding you. I'm just surprised to see you in such high spirits after nearly losing two agents. Am I having a good influence on you?" She leaned in, nipped at an earlobe. Angela squirmed in her lap and took advantage of their closeness to press her face into Ana's clothed shoulder.

"Yes," she said. Her voice was muffled. "But you're right. I shouldn't—I forgot what this is about. About life and death.

"Ana," she said, lifting her head. "I wasn't even scared when it was happening. I—I was excited. It was...I thought it was..." Her voice failed her.

The use of her name rather than her title was what took Ana aback. Angela was ordinarily so beholden to that, humbling herself, panting out _ma'am_ s and _captain_ s as enthusiastically as she could. _Ana is fine,_ she had told her, the first or second time they were on the practice range together. Angela had shaken her head, wide-eyed.

_No, I can't. It wouldn't be respectful._

"Better than the operating table?" Ana asked, a chuckle rumbling low in her throat.

"Please, don't laugh."

"It's not that unusual. What, you think you're some sort of monster? You should talk to Jesse about running with the Deadlocks. He lives for a thrill, that one. Adrenaline is adrenaline, Angela, terror or exhilaration. Or were you sleeping that day in med school?"

"I shouldn't like it. You're right—we could have lost them. It wasn't a _game._ It shouldn't have felt like one. I can't let it happen again. I should stay in the operating room."

"You were able to save them because _you were there._ I didn't remind you of it to cast aspersions on you, Angela. I'm proud of you."

The low light of her room was reflected again and again in the brightness of Angela's eyes. She blinked and the tears threatened to slip over. With her lips parted and her forehead wrinkled, she might have been orgasming then and there, pushed over the edge by those words alone.

"Thank you," she gasped, a drowning woman surfacing again. "Thank you."

* * *

On her second glass of punch and beginning to feel the gin in the first one, Ana looked around the dimly-lit room to see whether a certain agent had made her appearance yet. The glance proved fruitless, given the mass of costumed people. There was no telling if she'd even be able to recognize Angela right away. But the doctor was surely going to make an appearance soon; the party had been underway for an hour already.

Overwatch's annual Halloween parties were a tradition started and largely orchestrated by Gabriel, who mostly seemed to love the excuse to come up with costumes. This year he was a plague doctor, shrouded in dark robes and wearing the gruesome curved, birdlike mask. He complemented Jack, who had donned the silver armor of a medieval knight.

Ana herself had teamed up with Reinhardt and Torbjörn to make a trio of pirates. Her two shipmates were on the far side of the room, competing at some sort of party game.

"Mom!" Fareeha appeared at her side, grinning, pulling Jesse along with her by the arm. Ana had already seen her daughter's costume, but she had failed to realize that she was just one half of a matching pair. She took another gulp of her punch.

"It hardly counts a costume when you dress like a cowboy every day already, Jesse," she said, taking in the chaps, serape, and hat.

"I'll have to disagree, Ma'am," he said, tipping his hat. "You know the boss won't let me wear my getup on missions, so I'll take any chance I can get."

"He's doing the world a favor. Fareeha, you'll need to do something about this outlaw."

"That's what I'm here for!" She grinned and tapped the sheriff's badge pinned to her plaid shirt. She, at least, had forgone chaps, though there were still spurs on her heels and a broad-brimmed hat on her head. Ana could only hope that Jesse's nightmarish fashion sense didn't wear off on her daughter in the long term.

"Have you seen the Lacroixs? Amélie's so pretty."

Ana had not, but before she had the chance to say so, Jesse was speaking up.

"Yeah, I've seen them. She beat me at darts standing on her tiptoes. I was glad the boss wasn't around to see that, or he'd probably fire me for being a disgrace."

"Shall I challenge her on your behalf, Jesse?" Ana teased.

"I appreciate the offer, but a true cowboy's got to defend his own honor. There's no help from friends on the range."

"If you say so."

"Ana!" A stout pirate with a face full of black hair pushed his way into their circle. "Got a witch over by the bar asking for you."

"I should be going that way, then," Ana said. She had her suspicions about who that witch might be, though Angela hadn't told her what her costume was. "How was the ring toss?"

"Don't ask," Torbjörn grumbled. "He has a massive advantage over everyone else. Do you know where the pumpkins are? I'm going to go vent my frustrations on one of those."

Ana excused herself and moved through the crowd toward the far side of the room, where the makeshift bar was erected against the wall. The base's largest common room was hardly distinguishable under the black and orange decorations and the pulsing lights. She nodded to those people she recognized, though there were just as many she didn't—as was to be expected, she supposed, when they opened the party to 'friends and family.' She would have to say something to Gabriel about keeping it smaller next year.

Standing beside the bar was indeed a witch, every bit as enchanting as the word would suggest; once Ana got her eyes on her, it was difficult to tear them away.

"You're late," she said, leaning against the bar and taking a long drink from her cup. The alcohol burned down her throat and settled warm in her stomach. Both it and the sight before her promised an enjoyable evening ahead.

Angela's costume bared as much as it covered. Ana's eyes lingered on the creamy skin shown off between the thigh-high stockings and the excuse for a skirt. The black and brown of the dress stood in lovely contrast to Angela's lighter tones, her skin and hair almost seeming to shine.

"I had an operation run over, and then I had to get dressed." Angela accepted a glass of red wine from the bartender with a smile before turning her attention to Ana. "Fashionably late is the best way to arrive at a party, isn't it?"

"It's rude to keep people waiting." If only they were alone, not surrounded by friends and comrades-in-arms, Ana would push Angela against the wall there and then, suck bruises along her collarbone, have her strip to stockings and hat and nothing else.

But as it was, she could do nothing but let her imagination fill in the gaps. She couldn't even touch. A caress of the cheek or the hair would already give too much away.

"Were you waiting for me?" Angela raised an eyebrow and smiled. She looked downright devilish. That would have to be a costume for another year, Ana thought.

"I was wondering if you were going to show at all, or if you'd forgotten about our agreement."

It was hard to tell under the dim lights, but she thought Angela's cheeks might have gone pink. The witch shifted where she stood.

"Of course not."

"Good." Ana smiled. "I think I'm going to challenge Gérard's wife to darts. Would you care to join me?"

"Actually, I think I'll follow Torbjörn—he was off to go carve a pumpkin, I think. Did you and him plan it?" Angela asked, gesturing at Ana's costume with a smile.

"Oh, yes. Reinhardt too; he's around here somewhere."

"I'll have to get a picture of the three of you!"

"We'll see," Ana conceded. She was not overly fond of having her picture taken, but there were worse photo opportunities than dressed as a pirate with two of her coworkers.

"Good luck at darts," Angela said, holding her glass aloft. Ana chuckled and tapped her plastic cup against it. "Zum Wohl!"

"Zum Wohl," Ana echoed. She watched as Angela turned and made her way away from the bar and back toward the tables, and was gratified to learn that the back of her skirt was just as nonexistent as the front.

Amélie and Gérard were still in the corner by the dartboard, talking to Reinhardt, who was apparently receiving no more challengers for the ring toss. Amélie _was_ beautiful, clad in a simple white tutu and matching pointe shoes, and Gérard at her side was in tights and an elaborately embroidered top.

" _Bonsoir_ , Madame Amari," Amélie greeted her with a broad smile. " _Un pirate? Charmant._ "

" _Merci._ Odette, is it?"

" _Oui._ I thought it was less than imaginative, but Gérard wanted to be a prince, and so here we are." She smiled fondly down at her husband; already statuesque, on her toes she had several inches on him.

"It's my favorite of your shows! And you make a beautiful swan." He pulled her into a kiss. Ana watched, torn between amusement and annoyance. Two years into their marriage and they were as saccharine as they had been on day one. She couldn't ever remember her and Sadan behaving like that, but maybe that was why they'd never married.

Reinhardt caught her eye, as if he was thinking along the same lines, and winked.

"It wouldn't be your favorite if you were the one dancing," Amélie said.

"Oh, that was the one where you broke your toe." Gérard winced in sympathy. "But at least you looked incredible doing it."

"In the middle of the performance? What did you do?" Reinhardt asked.

"I kept dancing," Amélie laughed. "It hurt less than other times. If you're willing to bow off the stage because of pain, there are hundreds of dancers lined up to take your place, Monsieur Wilhelm."

Reinhardt gave an exaggerated shudder. "You make me glad my job just involves fighting omnics. At least I've never broken a toe."

"You got crushed in your armor in that skirmish in Hamburg and broke seventeen ribs," Ana said. She remembered the nightmarish scene rather well: Bastions taking full advantage of Reinhardt's fallen shield, Jack trying to run to his aid without getting killed, Gabriel flanking, and her above it all in the ruined tower of St. Nikolai-Kirche, trying to land shots on the omnics' weak points.

It was odd to feel so nostalgic about staring death in the eye.

"But not my toe!" Reinhardt boomed, and they all laughed.

"Speaking of battles, Jesse said you trounced him at darts," Ana said, turning back to Amélie.

Gérard grinned. "I think that was quite the blow to his ego. Kid prides himself on being a sharpshooter and gets destroyed by a ballerina."

Amélie waved a hand dismissively. "He'd had at least a couple of beers, and it's not like throwing a dart and shooting a gun are the same motions. It's not a commentary on his skill."

"Well, I think he's taking it as one," Ana said. "In any case, would you be up for another match with me?"

"Why not?"

Watching Amélie play was a treat in itself. As Jesse had said, she stayed _en pointe_ , her lovely face still and focused as she lifted every dart and lined up the shot. She was steady and even, throwing well, landing shots twice on the bullseye and once scoring a triple twenty.

Ana, for her part, played badly; the gin undoubtedly had something to do with it, or perhaps she simply wasn't invested enough in the game. Whatever the reason, she conceded defeat with good grace and bowed out early.

"If we were on the shooting range, I'm sure it would be a different story," Amélie said apologetically, shaking her hand.

Ana shook her head. "I need more gin."

"See, there's your problem—I don't drink!"

"All right, Amélie. I'll be your opponent," Reinhardt announced. He'd gotten progressively more boisterous as the evening went on, no doubt due to the pints he kept downing. Whatever his size, he'd always been something of a lightweight. "Darts and then ring toss. We'll settle this once and for all."

"I accept," Amélie said, offering an elaborate bow. "But I hope you're prepared to lose."

Ana was joining the others in gathering around, eager to witness the duel, when there was a light tap on her shoulder. Torbjörn and Angela had rejoined them. Both were bearing pumpkins, the former's featuring an elaborate carving of interwoven gears and cogs, the latter's simply showing off the Overwatch logo. Angela's cheeks were definitely flushed now; the glass of wine in her hand was probably not still her first.

"Did you win?" she asked eagerly, and then, not waiting for a response, "We've decided that next year we're going to match. He's going to be a Viking and I'm going to be a valkyrie."

"Not just a Viking! Thor, god of thunder!" Torbjörn said. "I've already got the hammer."

"You'll need to forge me a sword—"

"Have you met Amélie yet?" Ana interrupted, putting a hand on Angela's shoulders and gently turning her to face the group. Angela leaned into the touch. Her cheek came down to rest on Ana's hand. The affection was cute, but not for where they were.

The idea of introducing the two fizzled away when Ana looked back at Amélie and Reinhardt. Their match was well underway, Reinhardt putting up a good fight from the sound of it. Amélie was intent on the board, and it didn't seem worth it to pull her away.

"No," Angela said. Her eyes were fixed on the ballerina. "She's— _mein Gott._ "

Ana glanced to their side. Torbjörn, distracted, had drifted away to join the circle of bystanders and heckle his longtime rival. Nobody else was paying them any mind. She took advantage of the moment to take a step closer to Angela and murmur in her ear.

"Shall I invite her to join us tonight?"

"She's married!"

Ana shrugged. "Invite both of them?"

Angela turned her eyes on Ana instead, large and somehow innocent-looking despite the wickedness of her costume.

"I just want you."

Ana raised an eyebrow. "Now?"

Angela simply nodded. That was the only incentive Ana needed to feel that she'd had enough of the festivities; she was ready now for a different sort of entertainment.

Without another glance at the witch beside her, she turned and led the way to the door, not bothering even to check whether Angela was following. The gin was warm in her stomach and throat, pleasantly blurring everything about her, but it had not dulled her wits enough to throw caution to the wind. This was not just a tantalizing game. In the morning, neither of them would really want to be caught.

The sliding door out to the hallway was open. The few people milling about there parted for her, and Ana stepped from the lights and sound of the common room into the dark hall like she was stepping into another world. She looked over her shoulder to see Angela close behind, and then beyond her the party. Near the door was a figure draped in a dark cloak and wearing a long, birdlike mask. He turned and looked at her. The hollow bird eyes watched the two of them walking from the party.

Ana raised a hand in greeting. Gabriel cocked his head, watched a few seconds longer, and then turned his back.

The dark hallway she'd traversed thousands of times before was suddenly unfriendly, exposed. She stood between the party and the rest of the base and did not want to go either way. The warm influence of the evening's drinks seemed to vanish in the instant she stood there. She felt instead cold, dull, and tired.

But hot fingers were lacing through her own and Angela was pulling her away with an impish smile. Perhaps she wasn't too tired for a taste of the witch's magic, at least. It would be a shame to let the night go without partaking of this treat.

The door through which they tumbled led to one of the pantries. When the door slid closed behind them and the lights came on, Ana saw that they were surrounded by piles of cans and boxes, steel shelving units heaped high with rations. A less luxurious setting than her office, perhaps, but the tinge of alcohol made it even easier than usual to forgive such shortcomings.

"There's no lock," Angela said.

"Nobody will come in here," Ana said dismissively, for herself as much as for Angela. "There's food at the bar."

Angela hesitated a moment longer, and then in a single stride Ana had her against one of the shelves. The witch's mouth tasted like red wine. She sighed and melted under Ana, reservations gone in the wake of lips against her own.

Ana broke off the kiss to a whine of disappointment, but Angela was left hanging for only a few seconds before she began kissing down the pale column of her throat. Her voice was a tumble of moans and broken Swiss as Ana suckled messy bruises along her neck, her collarbone. Her knee pushed between Angela's thighs to grind against her and the witch positively _screamed._ Apparently a tipsy Angela was a vocal Angela, useful information but a problem that needed rectifying.

Ana took a step back to leave her panting apologetically against the metal shelf.

" _Duet mer leid._ I'll be quiet, I'll be—"

Ana silenced her with a flick of her hand and reached around to untie the kerchief from her own head. Angela, quick on the uptake as ever, watched with eager eyes and parted her lips to let Ana feed the cloth into her mouth.

"Make as much noise as you like," she purred, returning leisurely to her exploration of Angela's bared skin. The cloth of her bustier was easy to push down, her breasts bare underneath. Soft and warm they felt in Ana's hands, and when her lips wrapped around an erect nipple Angela's noises became audible through her makeshift gag.

"I've wanted to do this since I saw you tonight," she murmured. Skin-to-skin, she could feel Angela's pulse beating rapidly. She continued to tease the little nub with her tongue, sucking, finishing with a wicked bite that had Angela crying out into the cloth. "You're bewitching."

When she'd left a nice hickey on the underside of Angela's left breast, she let her hands take over where her mouth had been.

"I thought maybe you'd just wear your scrubs. You never struck me as someone to enjoy costumes. But here you are. You're stunning, Angela. _Sahir._ "

Her thigh ground up again between Angela's. Now, in the relative silence of their secluded pantry, she could hear the faint buzzing, and she could feel the little bullet through the thin layers of cloth that separated her knee from Angela's cunt.

She was a little surprised that Angela had actually gone through with it, to be honest, but then perhaps she needed to stop questioning how deep her little witch's dirty streak ran.

"Did you enjoy this?"

She nudged the bullet with her knee, enjoying the way Angela arched into her touch, rolling her clit against the unyielding muscle of her thigh.

Angela nodded. Her teeth were sunk into the cloth, her eyes unfocused, red flowers blooming in her cheeks.

"Did you worry someone would find out? Overwatch's star surgeon, going to a party with a vibrator between her legs?"

Another nod, frantic. Angela ground her hips down again and again, and then, with an aborted cry, went slack against the metal frame. So quick. Undoubtedly she'd been on edge all night, but even so.

"Did I give you permission to come?"

Angela shook her head and then, quite abruptly, dropped to her knees. Maybe she was hoping to allay punishment, or just as eager for the taste of Ana as Ana was for her. Whatever the reason, Ana wasn't complaining when Angela nuzzled up the inside of her thigh, nosing at her through her pants.

"Here."

She guided Angela's chin upward with one hand and pulled the damp cloth out from between her teeth. Angela worked her jaw gratefully, but instead of returning to her ministrations, she sat back on her heels. An obedient dog waiting for command, perhaps.

"That wasn't the first one," she burst out.

"First what?"

"When you asked why I was late, I lied. Well, a bit of a lie. I did have to finish an operation, and I did have to get dressed. But when I put it on, the vibrator, I—"

"Couldn't help yourself?" Ana petted her hair. The perfect ponytail had come askew during the party, leaving stray hairs sticking to Angela's sweaty cheeks and forehead. Then she tightened her fingers, pulling cruelly, dragging more gasps from those pretty lips.

"I was thinking about it. About you seeing my costume. I really wanted you to like it."

She _looked_ like a dog, cocking her head, eyes wide, eager for a treat or even the simplest word of praise. Ana imagined her in her room, in her bunk, half-dressed, squirming to thoughts of what they were doing right now.

"I do like it," she said. Her voice was hoarse. Her clit was _aching_ between her thighs. "You're bewitching. But I would like it even more if you would _return the favor, Angela._ "

It was hard to tell whether it was arousal or fear that sparked across Angela's face—and the two did seem to go hand-in-hand with her.

"Yes, Ma'am."

She did as she was bidden. Her slim fingers struggled a bit with the ties of Ana's trousers, but then she had them open and was sliding her panties down. The air itself was a relief to her dripping cunt, but moreso was Angela's hot breath on her skin. A wet tongue parted her lips, tasted her, slid into her.

They had done this enough that Angela had gotten quite good. With gentle instructions and a less-than-gentle hand on her head, Ana had trained her exactly how she liked to take it, and the alcohol had not diminished those learnings. Angela licked, steady and eager, every inch the trained pet.

Ana was not still, either. She pulled at Angela's hair to guide her head this way and that. When she began to feel her climax approaching, she ground her hips down, suffocating Angela beneath her. A true witch trial, some lucid part of her mind thought, discovering whether she would drown.

She came gasping, ruthlessly riding Angela's face, a well-trained tongue soothing her clit through the orgasm. For a few long, pleasurable seconds her vision went white and all thoughts were gone.

When she came down from her high, Angela was still kneeling, glassy-eyed and the bottom half of her face soaked. She was absentmindedly licking her cheeks clean.

"Was I too rough, _habibti_?"

"No. No. It was wonderful." Angela slowly got to her feet with the aid of the closest metal shelf. She repositioned her dress to conceal her breasts and ran a hand through her bangs. "Oh, there's no mirror in here."

"You look fine," Ana said. In reality, Angela most certainly did look just-fucked, but given the dim lights and the free-flowing alcohol she was unlikely to be apprehended.

"Do you want to go back in with me?" Angela asked. "I want to see how badly Reinhardt lost."

Ana shook her head. "I'm tired."

She retrieved her kerchief from where it had landed carelessly on the floor, but put it in her pocket rather than returning it to her head. A glance around showed the storage room to be as they'd found it, so she led the way back into the hall.

The party was still raucous and pulsing with light in the common room. Ana looked at the dancing figures,  none of whom she recognized, and wondered how many more Halloween parties Overwatch would have.

How many years did the organization have left?

How many years did any of them have left?

"Go ogle Amélie to your heart's content," she said, offering a wave and a less-than-convincing smile.

"I'd rather have you," Angela said, then laughed. "Good night, Ana."

"Good night," Ana murmured.

She watched as Angela turned her back and disappeared among the people. She watched until she couldn't see her anymore, until the lights and colors and pulses of music became too much. Then she turned her back on it and headed for her room.

* * *

Jesse McCree found his way into the medbay one December night when Angela happened to be on the clock, working the graveyard shift. Well, _working_ was an overstatement; all the patients who were staying the night were all more or less asleep, and all that was required for her was to catch up on her reading and let the level beeping of the monitors become background noise.

So the door opening a little past two was enough to startle her out of the paper she was perusing from a recent experiment on cell regeneration utilizing nanobiology by a group of Japanese doctors, whom she knew by reputation and from attending the same conferences.

"Oh, Mister McCree," she said, hastily setting her tablet aside and standing. He was wearing hat and spurs, she noted, one of those quirks that made him infamous around the base even though he wasn't seen in person too often. Angela knew him by the rumors, but also because Ana would frequently mention him, in training or elsewhere.

"Doctor Ziegler," he grinned, tipping his hat. She looked him up and down. One of his cheeks was bloody, but such a wound didn't seem to justify him coming here. Blackwatch had its own medic to drag on illicit missions. She got the sense that Commander Reyes preferred to keep his crew as separate as possible.

"What can I do for you?"

"Uh, just wanted  to get some tests run." He was smiling sheepishly in a way that she had seen before, the look of a child who wanted to minimize their wrongdoing and thus alleviate any potential punishment.

"A checkup? At two in the morning?"

"We just got in. Truth be told, I, uh, might've ingested some toxins, so the boss wanted me to get looked at."

"Ingested—? What did you drink?" She motioned him to one of the unoccupied beds and pulled the stethoscope from around her neck. He obligingly began to unfasten the buckles of his protective gear, but his fingers were slow and clumsy.

"Not drink. It was some kind of smoke. I don't think it's much of a big deal, but Reyes said I was being weird and told me to head over here when we got back."

"Can you give me any details on the location?" she asked, impatiently brushing his hand aside and taking over the task of removing his gear. He let his arms fall limply against the bed and didn't object.

"Probably shouldn't. Reyes'll be mad if I give up classified information, and he's a lot scarier than you. But, uh, I think we were near some kind of chemical dump site."

Of course. Angela sighed. "How do you feel?"

"Kinda...fuzzy. Almost like I'm drunk, maybe? And my hands're shaking, but you can see that for yourself."

"All right," Angela said. "I'm going to draw blood, and then you're going to go to the WC and take a shower and a urine sample for me. Will you be able to undress and wash yourself?"

He nodded, wincing a bit as she tied the tourniquet about his bicep and rubbed down his inner elbow. He continued to watch, seemingly fascinated, as she inserted the needle and began to fill the vial. She hoped he wouldn't pass out on her. It was always the ones who insisted they could watch that ended up regretting it.

But he seemed steady, unaffected by the sight of dark red flowing from his veins and through the tube. Perhaps he was too out of it to be bothered. When the blood was collected, she helped him up from the bed and watched him walk, a bit crookedly, to the bathroom.

"I'm not gonna die in here, am I?" he called.

"Keep it down. There are other patients sleeping. And no, I don't think you will. If you'd ingested a high enough dose for that, we would be seeing more symptoms. Now go on."

He obeyed.

An hour later he was back in the bed, dressed only in a hospital gown. He'd tried to keep his hat on and made a fuss when she insisted that it might well be contaminated as well, but now he was lying as docile as ever, watching as she fed new substances into his IV.

"Should end up in here more often."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Usually just get biotic cannisters thrown at me in the field. Sewn up while crouched behind cover. Don't get to lie back and enjoy the process."

"Are you enjoying this?" she asked, unable to keep from smiling. The things she had heard about this man, about his past, had made her expect someone else. A young man with a filthy mouth and no self-control, maybe. But even when she'd taken his hat, he'd only feebly waved his arms and demanded it back. More a puppy than an attack hound.

"Sure. Feels like a while since I've been in a bed. And it's nice here."

Angela glanced around. Certainly the medbay was a homey place for her, but she wouldn't really consider the white walls, the bright lights, and the beeping machinery _nice._

"You like hospitals?"

He frowned. "What? No. Meant Switzerland. And the base. Gettin' dragged here straight out of Deadlock Gorge, whole thing felt like a fever dream. So comin' back always makes me nostalgic. Transport landin' and passin' that big-ass statue. They should install spotlights in the eyes. 'The Strike Commander sees you.'" He leaned back and chuckled. His words were smooth, still a bit slurred. His eyelids seemed to be struggling to stay open. Angela glanced at the monitor, but his vitals were all still even. It wasn't odd for him to be a bit out of it given the test results.

"And I might get to see Amari before we head out again."

"Captain Amari?" Angela tried not to sound too interested. A sacred name murmured here in this sterile chapel.

"Yeah. Bet you see her in here every now and again, huh? Been a while since I've taken her on out on the practice course. I always think I've gotten better, but she stomps me every time." He smiled and shook his head. He had been smiling most of the time he'd been lying there, but this was the first smile to which Angela paid attention.

"She's teaching me to shoot, actually."

"What for? You wanna trade in your lab coat for a uniform?"

"No. I've...I'm flying out on missions now too. If I'm going in the field, I need to be prepared." But still she hadn't drawn her pistol on an assignment. Still her practice was haphazard. She had little confidence in that ability.

Jesse McCree and Ana Amari, sharpshooters alike, speaking of each other with fondness in their voices. They had known each other longer than she had even been in Overwatch.

Stupid, childish thoughts, she sternly reprimanded herself. Was she not content with what she had? Did she wish to be more like this man, dragged into Blackwatch because his only other option was a cell? He could wield a gun. What skill was that? What person was there in the world who could not kill?

Her thoughts were interrupted when the doors to the medbay slid open and a new visitor came in. It was Gabriel Reyes himself, dressed in black tactical gear to match Jesse's own, a frown etched onto his face. Like his subordinate, he had dried blood crusted along his chin and neck.

"Commander Reyes," Angela said, standing. "Did you inhale it as well?"

"No. Just came to check up on this idiot," he grumbled.

"Aw, you do care," Jesse said, smiling even more widely.

"He's a bit loopy," Angela hurried to clarify. "The inhalation can do that. He'll be fine."

"So it was toxic?" Reyes walked over to the bedside, the soles of his boots heavy and loud against the tile floor.

"Yes. Mercury poisoning, it looks like. I'm performing chelation therapy now—injecting another substance into him to bind to the metal. He'll be fine. He just needs to rest, and when the treatment is done we'll get some nutrients into him."

He might have looked relieved; she didn't know him well enough to say. In any case he was looking at her, brow slightly furrowed, considering, intent.

"Thank you," he said.

"Oh, well, it's my job," she said, though there was pride blooming warm in her chest at the acknowledgment. "He wouldn't tell me how it happened."

"Not loopy enough to be leaking information? That's something."

"Hey, it'd take a lot more mercury to make me betray y'all," Jesse said. His eyelids fluttered open and then closed again, wanting to stay awake but unable to resist his body pulling him gently into unconsciousness.

"There are reasons why we don't sit at the table with you," Reyes said abruptly, still looking at Angela. "Not just to satisfy my love of secrets."

"I know," she said, wondering if she did know. "I just can't help but be curious. Mercury vapor inhalation isn't really a standard problem I see in here."

"If it was, you'd have to start a band."

"What?"

"Heavy metal," he deadpanned. It took her by surprise, and for a few seconds all she could do was stare at him, but then she couldn't stop herself from laughing.

* * *

It was a few days after seeing McCree in the medbay that Angela visited the basement practice range on her own. She didn't have any major operations scheduled that afternoon, and she'd decided to spend the free time shooting away at Metis's bots. She'd flown out on several more operations since Minsk, but she hadn't yet found herself needing to draw her pistol to defend herself. On the one hand she was glad; on the other, she was certain that the time was to come sooner or later, and she almost wished it just would, so she could be done with it.

She tapped in and retrieved her pistol from its locker, but she had no sooner set foot onto the range than she realized that she was not alone. There was the harsh sound of a weapon unlike her own, and, in between the reports of gunfire, voices.

She should have expected it, she supposed. Most of the other times she came down to practice had been in the dead of night, when company was unexpected. But now, in the mid-afternoon, it was natural that she shouldn't have the place to herself.

The best thing to do would be to pretend she was the only one there, to head over to the stationary bots and just do what she always did. But now she was self-conscious, her focus gone, and she was curious about her company.

So instead of doing what she should have, she kept her pistol held lightly in one hand and walked on her toes toward the voices. They were coming from around the corner, where the moving targets were kept, along with crates and various other props to enhance the combat simulation.

Distinctly aware that what she was doing was unprofessional at best and rude at worst, Angela peeked around the wall.

One person was mowing down the targets with ease by way of the heavy black shotguns held in both his hands. That and the beanie was all the evidence Angela needed to identify Commander Reyes. The other person, sitting on a pile of boxes just a few meters away from where Angela was leaning out, was Fareeha Amari.

"I just don't see how it helps," she was saying. "When they move in patterns, isn't it more or less the same as if they were standing still?"

Reyes shot down the last bot with a blast like thunder and turned to reply. Angela hurriedly ducked back behind the wall. Her heart was pounding absurdly fast. What was she doing, eavesdropping like a child? This was none of her business.

"Sure it's not ideal, but practicing on anything is better than doing nothing. Why don't you write a program to make them move more erratically? You told me you were doing a lot of coding these days."

"I guess I could try that. Mostly I'm just doing little things with Winston. I definitely have a lot of free time. When are you leaving again?"

"Doctor cleared McCree, but I'm going to give him a couple more days to rest, and then we're flying out to Ottawa."

"What's there to do in Canada?"

"You know I can't tell you that." Reyes's voice dropped, becoming suddenly ominous, growling. "If I did—"

"You'd have to kill me," Fareeha finished, and then they both laughed.

Angela, hidden behind the wall, listened to the sound and felt an emotion she couldn't quite identify blooming in her chest. It hurt, for some reason, to stand there and hear them laughing while she hid around a corner.

"I wish you were around more often."

Reyes grunted. The shotgun blasts began again, making Angela flinch. She had to focus harder to catch the threads of the conversation now, interwoven as they were with gunfire.

"It gets lonely."

"The monkey isn't good enough company?"

"Don't call him that. And he's great, he's just not the same. It's not like he can take your place. I miss Jesse. I miss you."

The two of them fell silent for several long moments. There were only the noises of the bots, the loud bursts from the shotguns, and the hum of the lights overhead. This would be a good moment, Angela thought, for her to go to the other side of the range and do what she had come to do, or just to sneak out and pretend none of this had happened. She had already overheard too much, heard things that hadn't been intended for her ears. But she continued to stand there, frozen and on-edge, listening for more.

When Reyes finally spoke again, it was in a low voice, harder to hear.

"Why are you still here? Do you really think she's going to change her mind at this point? It'd be better for you to be with your dad than here in the middle of all this bullshit. You could find someone to teach you to shoot back home, couldn't you? Hell, you're old enough now; you could join the army if you really want to. But Overwatch? You know she's not going to relent on that."

Fareeha sighed. "Yeah, I know. And I've been thinking about it more and more. It's just...this place feels more like home now. I don't want to leave all of you behind. Even if I'm just deluding myself, I like being close to it. Like I can pretend I'm actually part of all this. And I'm taking classes online. Might as well finish that before I go."

"Well, suit yourself."

"I wonder what she'd say if she heard you," Fareeha said, and her tone was no longer serious but light, playful.

"Yeah, let's not find out. I don't really like the idea of you heading into the military either, you know, but it's your neck. Your life."

"I don't want to make her angry. I don't like fighting with her. I just...wish she could understand what it's like for me to grow up looking up to her. Of course I'd want to be like her. Who wouldn't?"

At last the guilt and shame bubbling in her stomach and throat forced an action out of Angela. She pushed herself away from the wall, walking on her toes again, and headed for the cluster of stationary bots in the opposite corner. She felt sick. She wished she hadn't heard. She'd betrayed Fareeha's confidence by choosing to listen, betrayed Ana's by choosing not to tell her.

Because she _couldn't_ tell her about this, not when she'd only heard it by eavesdropping. Fareeha deserved better. She deserved to be able to speak freely without other people lurking around corners to listen.

Angela unloaded her magazine into the first bot. It squeaked and squealed in pain before collapsing in a feeble imitation of death. It felt good, but not good enough to make her feel better.

The gunshots and distant voices on the other side of the range paused, and then there were footsteps. Angela looked over in time to see Reyes looking around the corner. When he spotted her, he offered a nod and a wave with one hand.

She returned the gesture. She was glad of the distance; that way he couldn't see the guilt in her smile or the shaking of her hands.

* * *

She didn't like taking time off. Every minute that she was lying in bed was a minute that she could have spent in the lab, in the medbay, on the practice range. There were many infinitely better uses of her time, and being betrayed by her own body seemed like a poor excuse for taking a sick day.

For the most part, she had managed well since joining Overwatch. Modern pain medication helped, and she was no stranger to working in slight discomfort. But this time, for whatever reason, the meds did little to take the edge off the throbbing in her side. So she was reduced to hiding in bed, pressing a heating pad against her stomach while she read on her tablet and tried to ignore the gnawing sensation that she needed to be doing _more._

The knock came as a surprise. She jolted up, winced, and made her slow way to the door, trying to imagine who would come by her room rather than just sending a message to her comm.

The person who was waiting on the other side made her wish she had bothered to put on something more than sweatpants and a t-shirt. She was sure she looked a nightmare, too, her hair unkempt and the pain written on her face.

"You're back already?" she blurted.

"Don't sound so unhappy," Ana said. She didn't look fresh off a transport. Her hair was gleaming wet and tied back, and there were no traces of her mission regalia. Angela was a little disappointed; she did quite love the beret and jacket, but then Ana could command respect in anything.

"I'm not! Of course I'm not. I just didn't know."

"Went quicker than Jack expected. We just landed this morning. I expected to see you in the medbay for the post-mission checkup, but they told me you'd taken a sick day." Ana's eyes, sharp as ever, swept up and down her person, taking in every last messy detail. Under normal circumstances Angela loved that, basked in the attention like a cat in the sun, but today she just wanted to slink back to bed and hide there. She only ever wanted to look nice for Ana, to look like someone who deserved to be with Overwatch's legendary sniper.

"I'm sorry to have missed you there." Standing was becoming an effort, the cramps redoubling now. She pressed her fists into her stomach in a futile attempt to assuage the pain. "I'm not at my best."

"May I come in?"

Angela's room was not currently the most welcoming place. Between the stuffiness, the darkness, and various possessions strewn haphazardly across the small bunk, it resembled more a cave than a living space. But the aches in her gut and the desire to sit down won out in the end and she nodded, beckoning Ana in.

"Are you all right?" Ana asked. Her arms slid around Angela, steady and supportive, as they walked together into the little room and let the door close behind them. It was a relief for Angela to sink back onto the mattress, even hard as it was, and clutch the heating pad to her midriff once more. Ana seated herself at the end of the bed.

"I'm fine. It's just endometriosis. The painkillers didn't work as well as they normally do. I just need time."

Ana made a noise of acknowledgment in her throat. "Post-mission debrief isn't for another hour or so. Do you want me to stay with you?"

The answer had to be obvious, didn't it? Ana hardly even needed to ask. Angela wanted to say yes, wanted even to beg, but given how pathetic she was already looking and feeling, she wanted also to hang on to just a little bit of her dignity.

"Please," she said eventually, turning her head so her face was in the pillow and her voice was muffled.

Ana chuckled and stretched out beside her. The size of the bed forced them to press against each other. Angela nestled her face into the crook of Ana's shoulder and breathed in her scent. She could still smell soap on her, soft and pleasant. She wouldn't have minded sweat. She just let air flow into her lungs and paid attention to every sensation of Ana against her. Their legs were tangled on top of the sheets. One of Ana's hands was wrapped around her waist, the other stroking through her hair.

She wondered if this was what it felt like to fall asleep beside someone. An intimacy they had never shared.

"How was the mission?" she murmured.

"Good. Fine. Just supervising negotiations."

"Good or fine? There's a world of difference there," Angela said, and laughed. When she lifted her head, Ana was looking at her with a raised eyebrow. "You said that to me the first time we met."

"And you remembered that?"

"I remember everything about it. Everything about you."

A long silence. Ana looked at her, but there was nothing on her face. She was difficult to read. It was something Angela appreciated when they were playing, but she didn't know if she liked it as much now. She wanted to know more, to know what she was thinking, feeling. But when Ana spoke again, she didn't give her the answers she ached for.

"How old were you when you were diagnosed?"

Ana's fingers ran along her scalp, down the back of her head, brushed a sweaty clump of hair from the nape of her neck. A pleasant shiver ran down Angela's spine.

"Fifteen. That was the official diagnosis, anyway. I suspected sooner, from everything I had read. But it's mostly manageable. Just sometimes, like today, it _hurts._ " She pressed the heating pad closer into her stomach. The pain did not dissipate. The most she could do was distract herself, try to take the edge off.

"Is it your period?"

"Yes. Well—not always. But right now, yes."

"Can I help?" Ana kissed her forehead, her cheeks. Her lips were soft. Angela felt so safe there, cocooned in her captain's arms, a warm and sweet-smelling bubble.

"You already have."

"I mean," Ana said, breath tickling Angela's ear, "would an orgasm help?"

The hand wrapped around Angela's waist pushed up her shirt, trailed along the waistband of her sweatpants, and slipped a few centimeters underneath.

"Oh," Angela managed. She would be content, really, to say _no_ , content just to lie there and keep her head buried in Ana's shoulder, to even fall asleep like that. But the teeth nipping at her earlobe and those teasing fingers threatening to dip lower were convincing. She was already melting under her captain's touch, already aching for more. Ana hadn't let her come in precisely sixteen days; when she'd left on her most recent mission, she had been sure to deliver a stern edict.

_Don't touch yourself, Angela. Be a good girl for me._

"Just 'oh?'"

"I think it would help," Angela said. Then she thought of the mess between her thighs, as embarrassing as her appearance and the state of her room. Was she fated to continue to humiliate herself in front of Ana, to strive for perfection and fall flat on her face? "The toys are—"

"Toys," Ana snorted, and then they were kissing. Her mouth was hot and wet and hungry against Angela's chapped lips. The eagerness was flattering, even in her current state. Had Ana missed her? Did she think of her while she was on her missions, sleeping tens of thousands of kilometers away, landing lethal shots on enemy combatants?

Did she think of her at all when they were not playing?

"Ana," Angela gasped when they parted. "I missed you."

Ana just chuckled and leaned in again.

The hand in Angela's pants slid under her panties. The touch sent sparks up her spine. It was hard to resist rolling her hips into the contact, to silently beg for more. She should have wanted to take her time, savor it, especially without knowing when Ana would next feel merciful, but it was hard when every inch of her was sensitive and wanting, when she hadn't been touched properly in _weeks._

A cramp stabbed through her side. She broke off the kiss with a grunt of discomfort and repositioned the heating pad. Ana pulled back. Her thumb came to rest on Angela's clit and rubbed in slow, gentle circles.

"Would it help to lie on your stomach?"

Angela nodded. It was something of an effort to turn over, given the constraints of the small bunk, but Ana guided her. It really did feel better then, the sheets and mattress firm and solid underneath her aching front. Her breasts were firm and sore, pressed against her like that, but it was a small price to pay. She let her head sink into the pillow.

"There you go. Just relax."

She could feel Ana shifting on the bed, could feel a hand combing through her hair for a few more seconds, but she could see nothing. And as seeing would require her to crane her neck awkwardly over her shoulder, she was content to simply lie still, obedient and waiting.

Warm hands on her hips canted her ass up, moving her into a half-kneeling position without alleviating the pressure on her stomach. Then those same hands were slipping her sweatpants and underwear down to her knees, leaving her exposed.

The air against her wet cunt was tantalizing, but Angela had hardly a few seconds to enjoy it before fingers were dragging through her swollen lips, teasing her entrance and rubbing cruel circles right underneath her clit.

"Ana," she ground out.

There was a gentle slap on her folds.

" _Captain_ ," came a stern voice from behind her.

"Yes, I'm sorry," Angela panted, though the strike had really accomplished nothing but making her clit harder, making her bare and sensitive skin tingle even more. "Captain."

"Did you think about me this past week? Did you want to lock yourself in my office and pretend I was there? Sit in my chair and touch yourself and pretend I was there watching you?"

Angela's head swam. She did come remarkably close. Was she really that predictable? She would be a liar if she said that every time she visited the elegant room she didn't think about the first time, sitting on the desk and being eaten out by the woman she had admired and coveted for so long.

"I didn't touch," she said, voice muffled in the pillow. "You told me not to. But I—I thought about you. All the time."

"Good girl," Ana said, a compliment that did more for Angela's wretched state than a thousand heating pads could have.

And suddenly there was _heat_ on her cunt, and wet pressure engulfing her. Angela thought of blood and the smell, neither of which could be pleasant, but her thoughts were wayward sparks, easily dissolved and consumed by the fire of Ana's patient mouth sucking on her clit.

" _Hab Gnade._ "

She clenched her fingers into the sheets, bit down on her lips and the pillow, tried not to rock her hips back against Ana's face. The pain was still there, making itself known with every movement, but how lesser it seemed when her captain's mouth was on her, devouring her, tongue caressing and lips sucking.

She came embarrassingly quickly, her determination to take her time falling flat in the face of Ana's ability to take advantage of all her weak points. And still that tongue lapped neat, even strokes over her fluttering entrance, refusing to cease even as pleasure blurred into overstimulation.

Ana's hands massaged her thighs and her hips. She kissed her clit and her lips. The gentle touches were enough to take Angela from the aftershocks of one orgasm into the slow build of another. As if sensing that, Ana's fingers moved to spread Angela open, to show off every last square centimeter of skin, and she took eager advantage of that access. The slow licks from hole to clit were enough to have Angela writhing on the bed, her aching cunt finally finding the relief it hadn't been allowed in what felt like forever..

There were tears on her pillow. It wasn't the sensation, the sweet torture of it. It was just having Ana there. Her captain had come to check on her, offered to alleviate her pain, was eating her out. After a week of being forbidden to touch herself, and missing orgasms for twice that long, Ana was taking better care of her than Angela could have ever asked for, could have ever deserved.

The second climax followed soon after the first. She cried out wordlessly and collapsed down onto the mattress, grinding her hips downward onto the sheets until she had wrung every last bit of pleasure she could out of it. Then she was content to simply lie there, boneless, limp, and satiated.

Ana moved up the bed again. Angela turned to look at her. Her captain was smiling down at her. She'd done a good job licking her mouth clean, but there were still traces of dark red on her cheeks and chin. Angela found the sight more attractive than she probably should have. Her blood, painted on Ana's face. She reached up a hand to curl around the back of Ana's neck, hot and sweaty under her dark hair, and pulled her down. The kiss tasted like copper.

They broke apart.

"I love you," Angela murmured. "I love you."

Ana was still propped up on her elbows to look down at her. She was still right there, their bodies forced against each other by the size of the bunk. Nothing had changed, except that her smile was gone.

The stillness was broken by a loud beeping from Ana's pocket. Both of them moved again. Ana pulled out her communicator.

"I have ten minutes. I should go."

"All right," Angela said. The taste of blood in her mouth was cloying now. "Thank you."

"Rest up," Ana said. She stopped by the mirror to wipe her face, and then she was gone, leaving Angela behind in the dark.

* * *

How strange it was that the unthinkable could become thinkable, the unimaginable could become easy, the impossible could become routine. Had it been like this when she was a child, too, dreaming of becoming a doctor, burying herself in books whose terminology might as well have been a foreign language? She couldn't remember. That time was lost to the blur of memories.

She remembered certain moments as clearly as if they'd been photographed in her mind: seven, sitting in a temporary home and watching shaky cell-cam footage of omnics murdering a group of humans execution-style as an excuse for news before an adult caught her and changed the channel; nine, looking at a five on a math test and feeling only a gnawing pit in her stomach, whatever the scrawled cursive reading _ausgezeichnet!_ ; twelve and copying diagrams of skeletons and muscles onto any spare paper she could find.

Surely she hadn't thought it impossible. Children had much less a concept of impossibility. It was only when she was older, a teen, adult, that she realized the difficulty of such things as joining Overwatch and playing the role of combat medic.

And yet she'd done that too, hadn't she?

The wings and weight of the Valkyrie suit were no longer foreign to her. The Caduceus felt as comfortable in her hands as a syringe or a scalpel.

Winston laughed when she mentioned the name of the staff while making small talk during one of his checkups.

"You're doing Asclepius proud," he said.

She smiled and did not say what she was thinking, that the person who was proud of her mattered far more than any god.

The battlefield had become an extension of the operating room. She lived in two worlds: at home, at the Swiss base, tinkering with updates to her equipment and performing the most intensive surgeries; and in the field, flying with teams from base to base, dodging fire from omnics and humans alike as she soared between her comrades and engulfed them in blue or yellow light.

"That blue is dangerous," Ana said, eyes sparkling, when they crouched together on a nest high above the streets of Chicago. Her mark had already fallen.

"Dangerous?" Angela echoed, eyebrow raised.

"It makes me feel invincible." Ana drew out every word. Her fingers played along the barrel of her rifle, anxious, restless, desiring another target, another shot.

It was an inappropriate place for a kiss, in the midst of a mission and with a whole city in broad daylight beneath them. But she looked at Ana and wanted it. She imagined what they looked like, the pair of them, in their matching blue, sniper and doctor, warrior and healer. Ana could kill anything; Angela could heal anything. She felt the adrenaline herself, though the Caduceus's effects did not reach her. Up there, touching the sky, she at last found herself fitting the part.

"You are invincible," she said. "I won't let anything happen to you."

And with her wings spread and the sun dazzling and the mission on its way to completion, Angela did not look back at the other woman's face. If she had, she might have seen her smile disappear or her eyes watching her intently.

But she did not. She looked forward and saw only the world spread below her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asclepius is the Greek god of medicine. He carries a staff that is a simple rod with a snake wrapped around it. The Caduceus, in contrast, is actually the name of the staff belonging to Hermes, messenger god. The Caduceus looks sort of similar to Asclepius's rod, but it has wings and two snakes rather than just the one. Because of this, the two are often mixed up. The Caduceus is used as a symbol for medicine/pharmacies/health organizations because of the confusion with Asclepius's rod, even though rightly speaking the Caduceus, as Hermes's staff, has nothing to do with medicine. You have probably seen it--it's a common symbol, especially in the U.S. 
> 
> I feel like there was more I wanted to ramble about, but I can't remember. That'll have to be enough rambling for now.
> 
> My birthday is on Wednesday and also my dog died so make me happy and leave some comments/kudos. Okay?


	3. Amaranthus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> love lies bleeding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rocks fall; everyone dies.
> 
> 3/5ths!

The little café was overly crowded, no doubt due to the rain pouring down outside. Ana drummed her fingers against her ceramic mug. She and Fareeha had snagged a small table by the windows, but that wasn't entirely enough to ease the claustrophobia.

She didn't like going off-base. Crowds of unfamiliar people put her on-edge. Walking the narrow streets reminded her forcibly of endless fighting in the ruins of cities across the world. The broad city square of Zürich felt like an ambush waiting to happen. It was impossible to feel at ease, even if she knew that an attack on the base was probably much more likely than an attack on the city proper.

But Fareeha liked the city, liked wandering through the streets to stare at the old buildings. She tossed bread crumbs to pigeons in the square while Ana looked around at the surrounding towers to determine which would make the best sniper's nest. Fareeha could walk here without feeling ghosts clinging to her ankles.

The rain had driven them into the café, and the silence between them stretched long. Ana was restless. Sitting still only magnified the tingles of anxiety in the back of her mind. A hand on the pistol hidden under her coat helped, but not enough.

Fareeha had invited her into the city for a reason, she knew. They were easily a decade too late for spontaneous mother-daughter dates. She hadn't asked the reason when Fareeha invited her, because she liked to imagine that they weren't too late to spend time together, to enjoy spending time together. She wanted to believe that Fareeha had invited her because she wanted to spend a day in the city with her mother.

Ana had never been very good at lying to herself.

So all she could do was sip at the foam of her cappuccino and wait for her daughter to speak. Outside people caught without umbrellas clustered under the awning. The café was filled with the sounds of people talking and laughing. Ana heard only her heart beating faster than usual in her ears.

At last Fareeha made up her mind to speak. Maybe she had grown as restless as her mother as they sat there in silence. Whatever the reason, she took a drink from her mug, set it on the saucer, and addressed Ana with her eyes bright and her back straight.

"I'm thinking of going home."

"Egypt?" And then, when Fareeha nodded, "Why?"

"I'm...well, you know, I'm almost done with classes. It's been a while since I've seen Dad. And there are things there that I can't do here."

"Such as?" Ana's voice was sharp. She'd slipped into Arabic to minimize the chance of the other patrons eavesdropping. It was unlikely that she'd been recognized, given her hijab and choice of distinctly civilian clothing, but still it was a risk she did not want to take.

Fareeha followed her lead. "I mean...I'm not really doing anything here. I'm just killing time. I don't know. But I can't just spend my life in stasis. I want to _do_ things. I want to make a difference."

"You still have time." The espresso was bitter on Ana's tongue. Her heart was beating faster. One hand gripped the handle of her cup and the other stroked the slim pistol.

"Time?" Fareeha forced a laugh. "Sure I'm not as old as you, but I'm almost twenty-one. How much longer am I supposed to wait around for you to change your mind?"

So that was it. They were back at the same place again, about to have the same argument they had been having for years. Maybe Ana had been a fool not to expect this from the start.

"I haven't meant to keep you here. I don't—I don't want to hold you down, to force you to stay here, if you don't want to. But no, Fareeha, I'm not going to teach you to shoot, let you start—training here. I'm sorry if you thought I would, if thinking that stopped you from leaving."

Her daughter's smile disappeared. "Don't _lie._ You invited me here to keep me where you could see me, so you could make sure I was doing exactly what you wanted. 'Come with me to Overwatch,' you said, and now you want to act like that wasn't dangling everything I've ever wanted right over my head? You just wanted me on a shorter leash."

"I wanted you to see what it was really like! To see that there is nothing glamorous about anything we do! To abandon your fantasies of heroism and realize that what I chose is not what you—"

"My _fantasies_ of _heroism_? You think this is some sort of ego thing? Is that why you got into it, Mom? Because you wanted to be a hero?"

"I did what I did because I had no other choice!"

People were looking at them now. Even in a busy café with chatter all around, their angry voices were too loud. Ana tried to swallow her temper, to force herself to calm, but it was hard. She needed to find the right thing to say. Her words were coming out wrong, combative and insulting. She would not sway Fareeha that way, she knew. But knowing did not soothe her anger.

"Do you think I have another choice? I've lived my whole life looking up—in your shadow. Overwatch is all I've ever known. There are still battles to be fought, and I can fight them! I want to fight them! Why won't you let me? Why can't you understand that?"

" _I have done the things that I have done so that you would not have to!_ "

The truth burst from her like an explosion. She did not feel better in the wake of the confession. She felt instead as if the utterance had left behind a gaping wound with ragged edges, as if she was bleeding there in the café for everyone to see. Certainly there were whispers, faces glancing their direction. People seeing more than they should have been, unable to mind their own business.

Ana took a long breath and lifted her mug to her lips. It was empty.

"I know," Fareeha said quietly. "I know. You want to keep me safe. I've always known that. But I'm not a little girl any longer. You can't keep me here, hold me next to you and call that love. You have to let me live. Even if it goes against everything you wanted for me. Please, try to understand."

Ana shook her head mutely. The rain was coming down in sheets outside. Her heart was pounding in her throat. Anxiety and anger and terror waged a war inside of her. Fareeha, just across the table, was unreachable. She was already lost. She was already lying dead on a battlefield somewhere.

The world had not changed. They had fought so hard, given everything they knew, and it had made no difference at all.

"Fareeha," she said eventually. It was the only word she could manage. The café was blurring around her. Her pistol was warm under her fingers now.

Her daughter was watching her intently, with concern.

"Should we go back?" she asked.

Ana nodded. "I need—I just need time."

Fareeha said nothing as they picked up their mugs and stood to return them to the counter, where the omnic barista accepted them. She said nothing as they went outside, where it was still pouring. Ana had brought an umbrella, which she opened above them.

Fareeha did not say what they were both surely thinking, that after twenty-one years without a resolution a few more days, weeks, months were unlikely to make a difference.

* * *

Fareeha Amari's dorm room was located almost directly under her mother's. She was sandwiched between agents, her door the only one lacking a nameplate. Angela looked at the plain door and thought it was a useless attempt on Ana's part. Fareeha was as much a staple of the base as any of the rest of them. She used the communal bathrooms, ate in the cafeteria, spent her time alongside the rest of them.

Thinking of it made Angela uncomfortable. To be a part of something and yet not, separated by some invisible wall.

She'd been dealing with a lot of headaches lately. She had been dealing with the incorporeal list she kept carefully tallied in her mind growing longer.

Lena Oxton. Lost in a freak accident. She couldn't have hoped to save her, could she? It was silly to keep that blood on her hands. But an agent lost was an agent lost.

Joktan Halle. Shredded in the field, lost by the time they brought him home. If she had been there, perhaps things would have been different.

If she had been there...

Before it had been a thorn in her side that she could not go on missions. Now it was a problem that she could not go on them all. Every transport that left without her was an opportunity for that list to grow and grow, especially now.

None of their superiors had confirmed that someone, a powerful someone, was targeting Overwatch. But what she'd heard over the comm in Belarus had been enough for Angela. She thought that perhaps others suspected it as well. The accidents were piling up, missteps in their careful plans. The papers continued to blame them on an organization gone complacent and incompetent command.

She'd asked Ana. The sniper had regarded her with a level eye, murmured _"We're not working right now, are we?"_ , and...well, what had happened next had served very well to drive the question from her mind.

Mei-Ling was gone too, though fortunately not permanently. Ecopoint: Antarctica had at last finished construction, and she had eagerly departed with several coworkers. Angela had bade her farewell and felt an emptiness in her stomach. Suddenly she found herself wishing that she'd taken the time to go into the city with Mei-Ling before she left. A friend gone.

Had they been friends? Or had they just been acquaintances, coworkers, anything more overblown by a lonely mind?

But Mei-Ling would return soon enough, and then she would be able to make up for these lost moments. It was foolish to mourn her leaving, especially when she was so excited to go. Overwatch did not exist to connect her to others. It existed to help the world, and these days it felt as if Mei-Ling had done more to advance that objective than she ever would.

She steeled herself and knocked on Fareeha's door. She didn't know what to expect. She felt as if she'd never had a proper conversation with Ana's daughter. Before she looked at her and remembered their old argument on the practice range, and now she looked at her and felt furtive guilt. What would Fareeha say if she knew of the relationship Angela shared with her mother?

Angela had no frame of reference. To imagine catching her mother having sex with a woman just a handful of years older than her, she first had to imagine having a mother. She had to stitch closed the gap that stretched back through her history to when she'd first survived an attack her parents had not.

She was in the midst of that, imagining and remembering, when the door opened. For the first time she realized that Fareeha Amari was taller than her. It was a little unnerving.

"Oh," Fareeha said. She didn't seem as annoyed as she could have been. They'd had little contact in the past few years, just nods in the hallways or at mealtimes. "Am I dying?"

"I certainly hope not," Angela said. She forced a laugh that most certainly sounded forced. Fareeha did not smile. "I would hope to catch you sooner."

"Is—there's not something wrong with Mom?"

"No! No. Nothing like that. I was just, well, just..."

Words failed Angela. Why was she there? Why was she letting guilt force her into accepting an arrangement that had been offered years ago? Why was she betraying the trust of the woman who mattered more to her than any other?

Fareeha shifted impatiently in the doorway, waiting for her to come up with a coherent response.

"Are you still looking to learn to shoot? To practice?"

Fareeha glanced up and down the hall before responding. It was a subtle movement, but Angela noticed, and then she followed suit. Nobody but the two of them. Certainly no Ana, stumbling across her daughter and her lover making plans behind her back.

"Yeah," she said, voice low, cautious.

"I...Tuesday and Thursday nights around twenty-three hundred I like to go to the range for an hour or so. I could bring some work with me, and after I'm done there might be a pistol for someone who wanted to practice with one."

Fareeha's expression shifted slowly, suspicion to hope to surprise, and then suddenly she was grinning so broadly that the smile seemed to take up her face. It was not the way Ana smiled, not a little smirk. Nor had Angela ever seen such a smile on Fareeha before, even at a distance.

She wished it felt good to see it. But all she could really feel was guilt, boiling hot and anxious in her stomach.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"Holy shit. Thanks. _Thank_ you." She looked around again, though now it was less furtive and more as if she was expecting someone to come around the corner and pull the rug out from under her, to yell _surprise!_ and take it back.

"Please don't mention it." Angela stepped away from the door. She had things to get back to. She couldn't stand there, uncomfortable, any longer.

"So—tomorrow night?" Fareeha's smile wasn't as wide, but her face still seemed to glow.

"I will be there."

Angela hovered a few more seconds, gave an awkward nod, and then turned and headed back in the direction of the medical wing. She heard another _thank you!_ from behind her, but she didn't acknowledge it. She walked faster and faster, as if that would enable her to leave the things she was feeling behind.

When she was back in her office, she looked at herself in the mirror. She took in the dark smudges under her eyes, the beginnings of wrinkles setting in on her cheeks and forehead. About five years apart, but Fareeha looked so much younger than her. Twenty-five. Why did twenty-five sound so young and look so old?

It didn't matter. She had an agent waiting in the operating room. The only thing to do was try to deal with the guilt simmering in the back of her mind the way she always did: by suffocating it.

* * *

For someone who had supposedly interacted very little with firearms before, Fareeha seemed amazingly at ease wielding Angela's pistol. She stood relaxed and confident. Angela could see Ana there in the stern concentration of her profile, even if the little gun had none of the heft of her rifle.

"Where did you learn this?" Angela murmured. She had her tablet in front of her, but she couldn't resist watching. She was jealous, if truth be told, of the seemingly effortless performance unfolding before her. Fareeha had good aim. Better than her.

"I've picked up pieces here and there. Gabriel lets me watch him sometimes. And, uh, I've had teachers before, for a little while, before Mom found out."

The mention of Ana aloud brought the queasiness back to the forefront of Angela's mind.

"And what happened when she found out?"

"Uh." Fareeha reloaded, pointedly not looking away from the target. "Well, she never gives it to them when I'm around, but afterward they never want anything to do with me. I think most of them are at different watchpoints now, actually."

"She yells at them?"

"Like I said, I'm never around for it. She doesn't murder them, if that's what you're worried about."

That was not what Angela was worried about. In fact, imagining her life ending at a trigger pull didn't seem nearly so bad when it was Ana on the other side of the gun. Even being reprimanded by that smoky voice would hardly count as a punishment.

But then, as with all things Ana, the reality was certain to surpass her imagination, wasn't it?

"I should probably tell you," Fareeha continued, "that she _will_ find out. Sooner or later. She has like a sixth sense about me. Like a radar that tells her when I'm doing things she doesn't approve of. So if you're worried, or if that bothers you, we don't have to do this again."

"Why would you tell me that?"

Fareeha looked over her shoulder at Angela for the first time. Her face was open, guileless. So honest. "It just seems fair. You're doing me a favor. I don't want to get you in trouble."

"Thank you," Angela said. "And don't worry about me. I agreed. I won't go back on my word."

They looked at each other for a few more seconds, and then Fareeha turned back to the targets. A few long minutes went by to the steady sounds of rounds hitting metal. It was surprisingly easy to let it become background noise. Angela skimmed her inbox and tried to think of a diplomatic way to ask some of her many questions, to pry information from Fareeha without making obvious that she'd been eavesdropping.

"Do you dislike being here?" she asked eventually.

"What do you mean?"

"On base. In Switzerland, I suppose. It's far from what you're used to. Who do you have to spend time with? There isn't really anybody your own age. And school online doesn't help, does it?"

Fareeha frowned. "I love it."

"Oh," Angela said, not knowing what else to say. She had been doing well, she thought, and now her carelessness had ruined that.

"I know what you mean, but it isn't like that. I really love being here. To be in the middle of something so big, so important."

Hearing a sentiment that might have fallen from her own mouth helped. Angela felt less awkward, and words were bubbling out of her before she could stop them. "I can understand that. When they first invited me, everything seemed overwhelming, like I had stepped into a different world. I was honored. Joining an organization that I had read about growing up—"

"Yes!" Fareeha had turned away from the targets. Her whole face was glowing, her arms spread wide, the pistol and targets forgotten. "All my life I knew what Mom did, what she had done. We learned her name in _school._ And it was so weird to know her like that, the mother I'd have tea with every day after school, who took me to the beach and read to me and stuff, and then the war hero. Someone I saw on TV.

"It was like a world I couldn't touch, couldn't imagine. There was no room for me there. And then she invited me to come here, and I thought that things were changing, that she had decided she could open this place to me after all, that I was really worthy of being her daughter."

The words cut off. The smile vanished. Fareeha turned away sharply, as if the sudden motion could disguise the volume of her voice or the over-brightness of her eyes, as if hiding her face could hide the emotion.

Angela sat still, unsure of what to do. This time she had not been eavesdropping, but still she was left with the distinct sense that she had just witnessed something not meant for her, something private, and that it was indecent of her to intrude.

"She loves you," she said, because it was the first thing that came to mind to say.

"Love." Fareeha landed a shot in the center of a bot's head. It screamed in artificial agony. The sound bounced off the broad walls of the range. "She loves me because she gave birth to me. Not for who I am. Not for what I want."

"You don't think...that wanting to protect you is an expression of love?" Angela stepped carefully, knowing full-well she was walking through a minefield. She did not know how to feel about any of this. Should she have been insulted on Ana's behalf? But she wasn't. She was an intruder, a scientist, looking for information from the outside.

"Putting someone in a cage isn't love." Fareeha reloaded, her movements short and angry. "Loving someone only on your terms is just _selfishness._ That's why she invited me here, I think. I was so happy because I thought she wanted me to be part of her world. But she just wanted me somewhere she could watch me. But I won't—I won't just do what she wants. I can be my own person."

Angela had nothing to say. Such confidence was redolent of Ana. What would she say if she could see her daughter now, hear her? Was this truly a bridge that could not be crossed?

What was her place on it, thrown into the midst of the struggle without guidance or any idea which way to turn? Then again, she had as much as volunteered herself when she'd made the offer to Fareeha. And every second she spent listening made her gut twist more and more uncomfortably, because each word made her more resolved to speak to Ana herself, even if that was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.

"I'm sorry," Fareeha said, though her tone was the furthest thing from apologetic. "I'm just ranting. Not much point anymore. I'm going to leave soon, and then it won't matter."

Shot after shot hitting the target. She had her mother's aim.

"Thank you, Doctor Ziegler," she added as an afterthought, looking over her shoulder again.

"Angela," Angela said quietly. "Angela is fine."

* * *

Winston looked out-of-place in the conference room. It wasn't the fact that he was a gorilla sitting at a table with a handful of humans; all of them were more than used to the sight of him around the base. It was more how evidently uncomfortable he was, shifting from foot to foot, fussing with his glasses, looking anywhere but at the others.

He liked to keep to himself, Ana knew, and being asked to meet with the heads of Overwatch was probably unnerving. But they didn't _want_ to put him on edge, and—she really wished Gabriel would stop glowering out from under his beanie like he was seconds away from murder.

"You wanted to hear about the insecurities?" Winston eventually said, breaking the silence. For what seemed the hundredth time, he removed his glasses to polish them on his lab coat.

"Tell us everything. Everything you told me earlier," Jack said. He, too, refused to smile. If Ana hadn't been in a notably bad mood herself, she would have cuffed them both over the head. How was Winston supposed to relax with them interrogating him like a jury deciding whether or not the death penalty was appropriate?

Gérard was the only one of them smiling, but given that he was leaning forward on the table with that mad gleam in his eye of a wolf on a scent it was unlikely to be of any relief to their uncomfortable guest.

"Yes, sir," Winston said. "Well, as you know—or may not know—I've, uh, been working on Metis's encryption systems for the past couple of years. You said you anticipated hostile attacks, and there have definitely been some of those. The upgrades have gone fine—that's not really the point. The point is that I wrote a bot to monitor information coming in and out of her. Everything, really; got internet, files, mission reports, UN docs. Lots of porn in there."

He offered a strained smile. None of them laughed, and he coughed and moved on.

Ana was now thinking of her phone in her pocket and the series of photos she'd received that morning. She would be unable now to look at them, much less reply to them, without wondering if Winston was also seeing everything.

Probably that was not why this meeting had been called, but she couldn't stop the mental image of him bringing up a particularly risqué photograph of Angela on the screen for all of them to see. She'd have to make a point of deleting them after the meeting.

"So the bot hasn't pinged anything suspicious—I mean, apart from malware attachments and other attacks—and I mostly forgot about it until I was getting Metis's performance statistics and I dug through the data the program had collected, and I found something weird."

"Weird," Gabriel repeated flatly, tapping his fingers on the table. Ana shot him a look; he gave a one-shouldered shrug in return.

Winston cleared his throat. "There's an imaginary agent in the system."

Four faces stared at him.

"An agent with admin privileges. Someone able to access files, mission reports, get on the network, everything. A person who doesn't exist. The name matches no current agents or past agents. I ran searches in outside record databases too and couldn't find anything."

"What's the name?" Gérard asked.

"Lotan Ettinger. He's just sitting there in the system. I thought he might have been a bug, but the weird thing is that he's actually on records. He writes mission reports and gets added to mission rosters years after they're done. Someone's trying their hardest to make him look like an agent, because Metis would flag him if he didn't. And he's got to have been there a pretty long time. Maybe since the beginning."

Gabriel had gone very still. All of Ana's thoughts of earlier were gone.

"The implications—" she said. "You're saying there's someone out there, potentially multiple someones, able to access critical and confidential information through logging in as this agent?"

"That's worst-case scenario," Winston said. "But...well, yes."

"How long has this been going on?" Gabriel demanded, leaning forward on his forearms.

"I can't really tell. Even looking specifically at his usage profile, he looks totally normal. No mass downloads of data, no super weird habits. Someone went out of their way to make him fly under the radar. Even—okay, look at this."

Winston tapped two fingers on the table to bring the touchscreen to life, and a few moments later had it synced with his tablet. They were staring down at a list of times, dates, locations, and operating systems. The times, Ana noticed, were _recent,_ covering the past week or so.

"These are all the times that Agent Ettinger accessed Metis, going backward from today. These locations are what's really interesting—look, Grand Junction; Watchpoint: Grand Mesa. That would make sense for any real agent accessing the system, but Ettinger isn't real, which means whoever's logging in has a good enough proxy to appear like they're within the base when they're really not."

"Okay. Leaked information, smoothly-executed—now that we know about it, we can just plug the leak, get this Ettinger off the database, and move on. Right?" There was no question in Jack's voice, just the grim tone of someone who was sure he was wrong.

Winston hesitated, frowning. "Theoretically, sure. But Ettinger himself isn't really the problem. We don't know how he got in the system in the first place. That worries me a lot more than everything else, to be honest. This isn't just an attack, it's a long-term plan. An investment. And if we cut him off, whoever made him will know we found him. Right now, there's no reason to suspect we did. So what I want to do is try to see if I can bust through these proxies and get location information."

Jack looked around at the others. He looked nothing short of exhausted. Ana looked at him and knew that this was the last thing in the world that he wanted to deal with, the last thing in the world that he possibly _could_ deal with. He was already seeing his own failures projected onto headlines for the world to see, already castigating himself for not knowing about something he couldn't have known about.

"Well, you all know what I think," Gérard announced, slapping both his palms down on the table. "Give us the go-ahead, Jack, and I'll work with him. We'll find them."

He looked, Ana thought, inappropriately excited at all of this. But then, if this leak really was the work of the same mysterious foe he'd been doggedly pursuing, this might be the first fruitful clue.

"If we could find them, we could stop this," she said quietly. "If Gérard's right and this is the same people, we could hunt them down. No more ambushes. Overwatch safe again."

"Again?" Gabriel snorted. "If we don't even know how long the vulnerability's been here, who's to say it was ever safe before?"

"Gabe—" Jack tried to interrupt, but Gabriel continued obstinately on.

"If we're restating our positions here, I'm saying I think this is the UN. That Gérard's spook is too. They want a weapon they can control and if we plug one leak they'll cut us off at the knees. This setup was rotten from the get-go and we were bound to pay the price sooner or later."

"So what do you want me to do? You want to disband? Blackwatch relies on that funding just as much as the rest of us!"

Gérard's smile was gone. His eyes were darting back and forth between Jack and Gabriel as if he was spectating a particularly involved ping-pong match. Winston, at the head of the table, was shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

Ana sighed, shook her head, and stood.

" _Uskut!_ Both of you! This is not the time. The question is whether or not to allow Winston to try to trace this Ettinger back to the source or not. That is the only question."

Gabriel and Jack silenced, but their eyes were fixed on each other's faces, not glaring, seeming rather to continue their argument using some silent language to which only they were privy. Finally Gabriel grunted and leaned back in his chair, tugging his beanie reflexively down as if to cover his eyes.

"Fine. I'm all for it."

"Okay," Jack said. He turned back to Winston. "Go ahead. Gérard will support you. I want weekly reports, at least, and if you find _anything_ update me right away."

"Yes, sir!" Winston nodded.

"That's enough of that, then. You can all go." Jack dismissed them with a wave of his arm. Winston was the first out, probably eager to escape the tense atmosphere, and Gérard and Gabriel followed. Ana waited a few moments by the door. Jack was standing still and staring down at the table's display as if mesmerized. One finger traced coordinates and IP addresses.

He looked up to find her watching him. She offered him a smile, which he half-heartedly returned.

"I'm fine," he said. "I need some time alone."

She could respect that.

"Take care of yourself," she said, and left.

In the quiet stillness of the hallways on the way back to her room, Ana pulled out her phone. One new message from during the meeting; another picture from Angela. If it was anything like the others, it would be wise to wait until she was safely behind a locked door to look. But there weren't many people around, and she couldn't resist unlocking her phone to see what surprise the doctor had for her this time.

Angela was in Oasis attending a symposium on stem cell research, though based on her texts she was finding plenty of time for play as well.

The first photo she'd sent was a selfie, her white-blonde hair a fluttering halo in the wind, her smiling face framed by the deep blue of the artificial sea behind her. Tame enough. The second had been her lying on her back on the sand and staring up at her phone. There was sand in her cleavage and two fingers playing teasingly with the strap of her bikini. She was all pale skin and smile.

In the most recent she was on her stomach. Her sunglasses were held loosely in one hand, her lips wrapped around the stem, the bright blue of her eyes almost swallowed by the black of her pupils. Her top was on the sand beside her.

Ana felt several things at once. There was tension coiled hot in her stomach and between her thighs, and with it the surge of desire for more than a picture, to be able to reach out and _touch,_ or at least settle for hurrying the rest of the way to her dorm to touch herself.

But with it was an uneasiness, something that felt like nausea. It bordered on disgust, like she might retch just from the looking.

"Wow," said a voice over her shoulder.

"Gabriel!" she squawked, jumping what felt like a foot and instinctively clutching at her now-thundering heart. She turned her phone off and shoved it back into her pocket, reprimanding herself now for her impatience.

"Scientific stuff," he said, falling into step beside her. She leveled a glare his direction, but he simply gave that infuriating shrug and refused to so much as smile.

"Were you lying in wait for me?"

"I wanted to talk to you, sure. Not my fault you didn't hear me. How do you survive when you're sniping if you can't hear someone behind you?"

"Forgive me for not spending every waking second on-edge."

"You can never be too careful, even here. Especially here." He looked around them. A pair of passing cadets saluted; Ana nodded, but Gabriel ignored them.

"You sound as paranoid as Gérard."

"Paranoia implies the threat isn't real."

"Do you want to talk about the meeting?"

"Not here."

She got the distinct feeling that she was in for the kind of grim conversation that was best survived with alcohol, and she had none.

The rest of the walk up to her room was silent, marked only by the tread of his heavy boots against the tile floors. Ana looked at him out of the corner of her eye and waited for a smile, some quirk of the lips upward. It did not come. He was stone, and that made her uneasy.

When they reached her quarters, she beckoned him in and locked the door behind him. She took a seat on the bed and offered him the chair by her console, but he turned it down with a brusque shake of his head in favor of pacing back and forth.

"Are you worried?" she asked as she unlaced and pulled off her shoes.

"Worried isn't the right word. It's more like...like I was waiting for something like this to happen, but I still have no idea what to do about it. You know all Blackwatch's intel is bricked, and the stuff that sticks around is encrypted well enough. So we'll be fine. But you all..."

A dull ache was starting up behind Ana's eyes. She'd been up for too long again. She wondered why she herself wasn't more concerned about all this. Was she resigned to it as well? Had she just been waiting for a revelation like this one?

"You think it's the UN?"

"Not directly. But someone who can influence them. Someone who doesn't want an international police force sticking around. You know once the target broadened from the Crisis to however the hell we're defining _evil,_ people were going to get uneasy."

"We've been over this before." She leaned back against the headboard, though even a pillow cushioned behind her head did little to stop the growing pain. "We talked about this at the beginning. We agreed that the potential good outweighed the risks. You too—you agreed."

"Yeah, I did then."

"I've been thinking about it too," she said. "Every editorial. Every civilian casualty."

"—This was a mistake," he finished grimly. He pulled his hat off and threw it onto her desk, running a hand through his dark curls. Silver hairs nestled among the black ones caught the light and Ana's eye. She saw the same thing when she looked in the mirror.

"How long do you think we have?"

He sighed heavily, almost theatrically. "Who knows? Even if you all execute everything perfectly, there'll be more sanctions, limitations, countries that don't want us operating in them. People start saying it's pointless. So I'll get stuck with everything, and sooner or later Blackwatch will get caught, and the whole thing will fall like a goddamned house of cards."

"Have you talked to Jack about this?"

To her surprise, he snorted.

"Are you kidding? He's stuck in his own head. He doesn't give a shit about the 'decline of Overwatch'; he's too hung up on the decline of his image. Golden boy to whipping boy."

She was taken aback, and troubled, to hear that coming from him. She'd known things had been tense between them for a while now, but the vitriol with which Gabriel spoke suggested more than mere disagreement.

"He's going through a lot," she said, and regretted it almost immediately. Gabriel turned to her with a raised eyebrow, silently asking if she'd really just said that.

"Yeah, unlike the rest of us. Look—I get it. I really do. It's just—all this time out there in the field, doing things nobody else wants to bite the bullet and do, and I come home and he doesn't even say he's happy to see me. Doesn't care that I almost lost McCree in the field. No, it's all about another article calling him a mean name. I'm sick of this. It doesn't feel like we're doing anything anymore. Floundering in the dark and praying we hit a target. _Mierda._ "

"All we can do is protect the people we can," Ana recited. "At least the people we can see." A motto that brought her back to the Crisis, crouching in alleys and dodging death by the skin of her teeth.

Then she remembered a conversation with Fareeha in a café in Zürich. She was failing that too. She was failing to protect the person who mattered the most to her.

Gabriel must have seen her expression change, her hands grip reflexively at the sheets, for he abandoned his pacing and sat on the end of the bed.

"Okay, too much of that. Tea? Want to go have a round against the bots?"

"No. No." In and out. She counted breaths, forcing them in through her nose and out through her mouth. Forcing her body to calm was one thing. Forcing the image of her daughter's grave from her mind was entirely another. "Headache. Tea—tea would be nice."

"All right."

She had a little electric kettle in her room, convenient for times like this. Gabriel got water from the bathroom and they sat and listened to the whistle of steam.

"You going to text her back?"

The reminder of Angela was a good distraction. Supposing that the secret had already been foiled, Ana pulled her phone out again. The picture of the doctor was still there on the screen. Sand and skin; blue bikini matching her eyes; face coy and playful.

Again, arousal and repulsion.

[1534]  
**are you wearing sunscreen?**

She typed, hesitated, and then deleted it.

[1534]  
**Cute**

She sent instead.

"You're really bad at this," Gabriel said, reading over her shoulder. She gave him a playful shove away.

"I'm not trying."

"Didn't realize it was serious. How long have you been hooking up? Was Halloween the first time?"

"It's not—serious. And...no. It wasn't," she said, grudgingly. She wondered why the conversation felt so uncomfortable. Usually she would speak of such things with Gabriel with ease. Usually she would tell him without needing to be asked. "It's been a while now."

"You don't sound happy about that."

She gave a noncommittal grunt and looked back at the screen. Already Angela was typing a response. Didn't she have conferences to attend? Had she gone abroad just to flirt long-distance?

[1537] ساحرة  
**Would you like some more?**

[1538] **  
I'd like to not deal with you being arrested for indecent exposure.**

"Jesus, are you _trying_ to kill the mood?" Gabriel asked, wincing. "Besides, arrest? Thought the whole thing down there was that they didn't do law and government."

"Fine, Gabriel. What would you say?" she asked, exasperated, tossing her phone onto the bed and rubbing her temples in a futile attempt to relieve the ache building behind her eyes.

He considered for a moment. "I never knew nanobiology—"

"Stem cells. It's a symposium on stem cell research."

"—could be so titillating. Maybe _tit_ in all caps so she gets it."

Ana groaned, though she was unable to stop herself from smiling. It _was_ a good line, but before she had the chance to consider delivering it the screen had lit up once more with a reply.

[1540] ساحرة **  
Wouldn't you post my bail?**

"The UN definitely wouldn't approve _that_ budget expenditure."

"Oh, hush."

[1541]  
**That depends on whether they allow conjugal visits.**

"There you go," Gabriel said. "How long has it been, anyway?"

"Since I sexted someone?"

"Since you were seeing someone."

The nausea again. Her head was starting to hurt in earnest now. Perhaps it was the beginnings of a migraine. She took a long drink of tea. It scalded her throat, but she hardly noticed. It was chamomile, not her favorite but good enough.

"It was a mistake."

"The last time?"

"This time." She gestured at her phone. "This is a mistake."

Gabriel watched her for a few long moments. She took gulp after gulp of tea to make speaking unnecessary. She didn't have any other words. Saying what she was feeling aloud only made her gut twist all the more. She didn't have reasons or explanations or anything else. She just had the feeling, now made real through saying it, too late to take back.

But Gabriel didn't say anything, didn't pressure her. He sat quietly and waited for her to find something to say.

"She said she loves me."

"Ooh." He grimaced like he understood. Did he understand? Ana didn't even think that she herself understood. She could pinpoint the exact moment when Angela's attentions had ceased being flattering. The moment when she realized that they were not playing a game; or, if they were, that she had misinterpreted the rules.

She could still taste blood in her mouth.

"It was a mistake," she said again, unsure of what else to say.

"She's young. Idealistic. She's not much older than Fareeha," Gabriel said.

The nausea intensified. Ana could no longer identify whether it was physical or emotional, her own disgust turned inward or the natural result of the pounding in her head.

She knew what he was trying to say, but the knowing didn't help. She was sitting again in a café in Zürich and arguing with her daughter. She was remembering older arguments, Fareeha accusing her of using Jesse as a surrogate son. What was she doing? All that time spent with others, and her daughter was slipping through her fingers. Had she been grasping at straws all along?

"She'll figure it out," he continued.

Ana shook her head. "My head is killing me. I can't—look, thank you for the tea, but—"

He understood. "I'll go. Got a lot of files to double-check now anyway, don't I? What a shitshow. Feel better. Text if you need anything."

"I will," she said. "Would you mind getting the light on your way out?"

She sat in the darkness, head in her hands, but that didn't stop her from seeing when her phone lit up again. A picture. Another goddamn picture.

Angela's eyes were hazy, her mouth half-open, the hand that wasn't holding her phone kneading at her own bare breast. Sand behind her, like she was still out on the beach for anyone to see.

[1550] ساحرة  
**Does this change your mind?**

"Shit."

Ana dropped her phone off the side of the bed and slumped back. One hand slid under the waistband of her pants to rub rough circles at her clit through her panties.

An orgasm would be good for her head, she reasoned, as the space behind her eyelids throbbed and her stomach roiled.

* * *

Overwatch, a mistake to which they all continued to stubbornly cling. Angela, a mistake that she found herself unwilling to relinquish.

 _She'll figure it out,_ Gabriel had said. And it was easy, almost disturbingly easy, to let that become a justification, to abandon guilt at the side of the road. This was what Angela wanted, wasn't it? Was fulfilling her fantasies really so despicable?

A line of thought that resulted in where Ana found herself that evening, headache subdued by drugs but still in her room, still entertaining herself with a certain doctor.

What Ana could see of the hotel room from the phone's camera showed it to be lavish, high-ceilinged, the bed much too large for its single occupant. But if the room was pretty, it was nothing compared to Doctor Ziegler herself. The lacy white one-piece plunged in a steep cut to just below her stomach, barely covering her breasts. With her white-blonde hair loose and messy around her face, she might indeed have been an angel.

"I can't believe you brought lingerie. Are you really focused on the symposium? Perhaps I should inform Jack of how you're spending your vacation time." Ana spoke calmly, her voice betraying none of what she was feeling, the angle of her own camera preventing Angela from knowing that her clit was throbbing with every beat of her heart, that her hips were tipped up and rocking for friction against her own pants—the surgeon hardly needed to get a bigger head.

"The conference—is—fascinating, for your information," Angela panted, her voice slightly distorted by the distance and shaky connection. "In fact, I already have an idea for—ah!—for a new project when I come back."

"Would you like to tell me about it?"

"Yes, of course, but not now. For now—oh, Ana, _please_."

There was a faint sheen of sweat on her face, harder to pick up with the camera but there nonetheless. Ana traced the curves of her breasts with her eyes. Her nipples were obvious through the lace, dark and hard. The separation of the screen was aggravating when all Ana wanted to do was touch, tease, feel the heat of Angela against her and hear her quick, gasping breaths without the filter of static.

"Show me," Ana allowed, giving a wave of her hand before she realized her arm was off-screen. But the words were enough for Angela, who nodded. The camera shook and turned over for a moment, a dizzying blur of motion and color, before it stabilized again. She must have rested it against something, because the next instant both her hands were visible on-screen.

She had repositioned herself on the bed, face and breasts gone, the only thing visible her backside. The one-piece curved smoothly between her thighs, but the lace let color slip tantalizingly through: wine-red, pink, and the unnatural yellow of the toy lodged inside her.

Angela could not keep still; she was rocking her ass back in a futile search for friction. Her nails dug into her smooth white skin as she kept herself obediently spread, but the teasing glimpse was hardly enough.

"One would think you stayed inside all day, just playing with yourself. You're so _shameless,_ Engel. The chance for a vacation and this is how you spend it?"

The thick fabric of her cargo pants fortunately provided much more relief as Ana shifted in place to relieve the ache of her swollen clit. She didn't allow herself to use her hands, though. Not yet. Not yet.

"You make me shameless," Angela said. Her voice was more distant now, and muffled; perhaps she was pressing it into the sheets in that way she liked, playing at modesty even as she showed herself off and silently begged for more with every cant of her hips.

"Hardly. You sent those pictures, didn't you? As if you need permission. As if you even need a push. Lying doesn't suit you."

Angela's motions grew more frantic. Ana could only imagine what she would see if the cloth were not obstructing her view. Her slit, spread around the dildo, leaking more wetness with every word they shared?

"You're right," Angela gasped, breathless. "You're always right. I'm—a slut. I'm—I wanted this. I'm sorry, Captain. Please— _please—_ "

"You can touch yourself," Ana allowed. She forestalled the rush of gratitude, half-coherent moans and whimpers, with a crisp snap of her voice. "But _first,_ crawl forward a few inches, and get the lace out of the way. I want to _see_ you."

Angela obeyed at once. One hand remained in place, keeping her ass spread, but the other hurried to pull the underwear to one side. It was as pretty a view as Ana could have imagined. The upside-down heart of her labia was puffy and spread around the base of the toy, her entrance fluttering and constricting against the silicon. Her clit was evident from this angle, as hard as Ana's own, though soon Angela's fingers were working furiously against it.

"I wish I could touch you," Ana murmured.

"What—what would you do?"

"I'd fuck you with that toy, for one thing." Ana was no longer restraining herself. She slipped her hands into her pants, grinding against her palm, hurrying toward her second climax of the day. It promised to be better than the first, eked out with a hurricane in her skull and guilt swallowing her alive. "Hold you down and spread you wide until you scream."

"Like—this?"

Angela's fingers moved from her clit to grasp the base of the dildo. She slid it in and out, rabbit-quick thrusts that had her hips rocking to match her own pace.

"Yes— _yes—_ "

Ana came in her pants, almost immediately cursing the damp mess in her underwear. Well, a shower would feel good anyway.

She was able to rub her clit in slow circles and enjoy the afterglow as Angela herself came with an aborted cry and her cunt pulsing around the bright yellow toy. She slumped weakly down onto the sheets when she was done, not even bothering to pull it out.

The camera was jostled again. Ana closed her eyes to avoid the vertigo this time, and when she opened them she was once again looking into Angela's face. Her eyes were less focused than before and there were strands of loose hair plastered to her forehead, but her lips were split into a dazed and beautiful smile.

"I wish you were here," she said quietly. "But this was fun too."

"Yes, it was. I'm glad you're having a good trip. And I'm eager to hear what you've come up with when you get back."

"Two more days," Angela murmured.

"Two more days. Good night, Angela."

"Good night, Ana. I love you."

The word again. The word that turned the warm pulse of her afterglow into something entirely different. The nausea was back. The dizziness was back. Gabriel's voice was ringing in her head and all the sureness of earlier was returning.

_Mistake a mistake you knew this was a bad idea and you did it anyway just couldn't resist getting off could you_

"Don't say that," she said, before she could stop herself.

"Why not?" Angela frowned up at the screen. "It's true."

_It's not true. What do you think this is? What do you think we're doing?_

She did not say that.

"Let's have a talk when you get back," she said instead, finally.

"Okay," Angela said. She'd stopped frowning, but the smile didn't return. In some ways Ana was glad for that.

"Good night," Ana said again, and she closed the connection before Angela had the chance to say anything else stupid.

* * *

The funeral of Gérard Lacroix was on a Wednesday afternoon. It was outside, too many people to fit in the church, and cold. They all huddled in their coats and scarves and stared at the casket. It was closed. It had to be closed. Angela had seen him when they'd brought him back, seen the wounds that marked him like he'd been mauled by a wild animal. A face that was hardly recognizable as the one she had used to see around base from time to time.

She had not known him. She had known about him, vaguely, through things she heard and through things Ana said. But he'd done most of his work on the base, so she'd never needed to sew him up. She'd seen him at meals, at celebrations, in the halls. A coworker and nothing more.

So she stood in the crowd and felt like an imposter. A French dignitary was droning on about Gérard's service for the good of his country and the world, but she wasn't listening. She looked up at the leaden grey clouds, at the church spire, at the half-timbered houses and the river flowing through the square. It seemed a quaint place for him to come from, given what she knew about him. A quaint place for him to be buried.

Another tally on her imagined list. Another person she had failed to save. Another person whom, logically, she _couldn't_ have saved. But knowing that made no difference. If her latest project had just been a little further along—if she had only worked a bit harder, a bit longer—

A snowflake landed on her upturned face and she blinked in surprise. It was Commander Morrison speaking now, his voice booming easily over the crowd. Words like _heroism_ and _invaluable comrade_ and _friend._ A list of traits that had not saved him.

When the ceremony was over, she drifted over to the river to stare over the railing at the dark water. The snow was falling in earnest now and the crowd had diminished, everyone eager to escape the cold. She herself would need to head for the station sooner or later, catch a hypertrain to bring her back to the base. But moving seemed difficult. She was content just to stand and watch snowflakes land on the water and dissolve.

A pair of gloved hands joined hers on the railing. She looked up into an intimately familiar face. Ana looked the same way she herself felt, like a hand of immense weight was pressed on her shoulders. A few strands of silver hair had escaped her braid and were fluttering in the breeze. More silver than not, her hair appeared.

She looked old. It was a realization that Angela reached uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry," she offered. Useless, stupid words, but what else was there to say? What use was anything against the gaping wound left by the loss of a friend? It was an injury Angela found herself utterly unable to fix. The only cure was to prevent the damage in the first place.

" _You're_ sorry? Well, that makes two of us."

The words were harsh, colder than the air and the snow. Angela flinched. Ana turned to look at her, face devoid of feeling, and then looked back at the water.

"It's not your fault."

"Sure, I'm not the one who murdered him. But I could've done more. We all could have. After Amélie—we could have kept an eye on him, made him stay on base. But no. Just Gérard, we all said, frenetic as he ever was, and we lost both of them.

"Look over there—that man by the coffin."

Angela looked. Morrison was still standing by the casket, but he wasn't alone; he was speaking to a small man with feathery white hair and a tear-streaked face.

"His father. How do we look him in the eye and tell him we let his son die and his daughter-in-law get kidnapped? I'm amazed he's not spitting in Jack's face."

"Do you think it was the same people who kidnapped her?"

"Of course. He was on to them—he was close. That's why they took her, killed him. _Talon_."

"I need to do more," Angela said quietly. "I could have—"

"You could have _what_? Saved him? Saved the world?"

The acid in her tone stung. For the first time that day, for the first time in a long time, Angela felt tears prick her eyes. She turned her face away. It was selfish, she knew, to make such an occasion about her own inadequacies.

Ana said nothing else for several long minutes. They just stood there, the two of them at the railing and staring down into the water. Angela's cheeks and nose were pink from the cold. She wanted to move her hands along the railing and take Ana's in them. She wanted to comfort her. She wanted the answers that would make everything about the moment right instead of horribly, horribly wrong.

"Do you want to ride back with me?" she asked eventually.

Ana shook her head and turned away from the railing.

"I'm going to go talk to Jack," she said. She walked away without a touch, without another word. Angela was left standing alone, dreaming of fingers carding through her hair, dreaming of murmuring those three forbidden words that were supposed to make everything all right but had somehow only made everything all wrong.

* * *

"He's nice. He's always more cavalier than the rest of them. He told me once that if Mom wouldn't teach me how to shoot, I could always just pick up a grenade launcher and not have to worry about aiming. I think it bothers them, especially Gabriel, like he isn't taking things seriously. But he is—he was."

Fareeha was rambling. Her voice was tight, forcibly controlled, as she regurgitated memories of a man not yet in the past tense for her.

It made Angela uncomfortable to hear it. She was the one who'd asked if Fareeha had known Gérard, and she should have been prepared to deal with the answer. But the words were just conjuring up more guilt in her. Now she was forced to picture a man whom she had last seen pale and disfigured and bloody, a man whom she was coming to know only through stories.

It was luckier to not know him until after he was gone, she supposed. But that luck only made her feel more and more like a monster.

She deserved it. If she could not save him, she deserved at least to suffer for that.

"And Amélie...why would they take Amélie? She had nothing to do with any of this! Even if someone had a grudge against Overwatch, to involve civilians..." Fareeha shook her head, words apparently failing her in capturing the heinousness of the crime. "Did you ever meet her? She was always really busy, so I only saw her once in a while. Mom took me to one of her shows, years back, and it was just—like nothing I'd seen before."

"I saw her once," Angela said. "At the Halloween party last year. We weren't introduced, but I saw her. She was—lovely."

A swan of a woman, clad in white and almost too graceful to be real. She had laughed and smiled and Angela had found it hard to look away. And now she was somewhere out of reach, as likely dead as not. Unbidden Angela found herself thinking of what she would look like lifeless and still, wounded like her husband.

She turned back to her tablet and the figures from her latest experiment to distract herself. It was a futile attempt.

"Yeah, the Odette costume!" Fareeha's eyes lit up. She looked away from the targets and caught Angela's eye. "Are you—do you—"

Angela, uncertain of what was being asked, shook her head slightly. Fareeha dropped her eyes and turned back to resume shooting.

"—That is, I'm sorry you couldn't meet her. And I'm sorry I never really got the chance to meet her either. But they took her and we'll probably never see her again, and I'm worried. They got her and they got him, and now everyone I care about has a target on their back.

"This is why I want the chance to fight. To stop things like this from happening. To protect people! But I'm just stuck here, not doing anything! Useless!"

Angela watched her shots find their marks. She was so _good,_ so instinctual, like good aim was something inherited. It was hard not to feel jealous when she, after all her time on the range, still struggled to consistently hit her targets.

"I feel the same way," she said. Her voice was so low that she wasn't sure Fareeha would hear her over the sound of shots hitting metal or the bots crying out. She wasn't sure if she wanted to be heard.

But Fareeha did hear.

"You feel useless? _You_?"

"I couldn't save him," Angela said. A foolish feeling, more so when spoken aloud. "Either of them. What does it matter, being a doctor, if I cannot save people?"

"But he wasn't even here. It's not like you were on the same mission or anything. Nobody could have—"

"I know," Angela said sharply. "It's not logical. But I still—feel it."

The project she had told nobody about weighed on her. Every day it remained incomplete was a day where another comrade could be taken from them. She needed to finish it, perfect it, strip away the fear of death looming over them once and for all.

"We'll get them," Fareeha said. "Jack and Gabriel and Mom—they'll get the people responsible."

"Thank you for your faith, Fareeha."

The two of them spun around at the sound of a voice they both recognized. Angela knew who she would see there, could already feel her heartbeat in her throat.

Ana was not smiling. Her face was steely, the look of a woman about to pull the trigger. It was not Ana Amari, mother or lover, who stood in front of the silent doors to the range. It was the Shrike, all clad in battle-blue, ready to impale.

And for all her stupid fantasies, for all the times she had imagined this exact scenario, Angela looked into her face and felt nothing but sick fear.

"Mom, this isn't—"

"Isn't what it looks like?" Ana took crisp steps across the tiled floor to join them. The sound echoed in the wide room. It seemed much louder than it should have.

Angela didn't know what to say. She looked at mother and daughter. Fareeha was taller, but she did not seem taller. Ana shadowed her, looming over both of them. She imperiously held out one hand and stared silently at her daughter.

Fareeha did not go quietly.

"You can't keep _doing_ this. I can make my own decisions now. You aren't—"

"Civilian personnel staying on base are allowed access to weaponry, armories, and practice ranges only with special authorization," Ana said. Clipped tone. Still face.

"Oh, come _on—_ "

"Are you authorized?"

"No, because you won't let—"

"To break these rules is a direct violation of Overwatch policy as well as international law. Violators are to have their residency revoked. Charges may be pressed, depending on the severity of the situation and in the case of _repeat offenders._ "

There was emotion now, but it was worse than the coldness. Angela could hear the anger, the snarl, just below the surface, and it made her only feel worse. But Fareeha appeared neither cowed nor afraid, just equally angry.

"Would you like me to follow policy, Fareeha? Perhaps being kicked off base would make no difference to you if you're so eager to run home anyway."

Fareeha worked her jaw. She stared long and hard into her mother's eyes. The seconds drifted by. Angela counted her own rapid heartbeats.

Then Fareeha capitulated, looked away, and dropped the pistol into her mother's outstretched hand.

"Thank you."

Ana spun on her heel and headed back for the door. She didn't bother to so much as glance over her shoulder even when she spoke next.

"Fareeha, we'll talk later. Doctor Ziegler, come with me."

Propelled into motion by the command like a puppet on strings, like an obedient dog, Angela followed. Fareeha, looking miserable, met her eyes and mouthed _sorry._ Angela shrugged and tried to offer a smile. She had been warned, hadn't she?

Ana did not look back as she led Angela away from the range. At this time of night the base's halls were nearly deserted. It felt like taking a walk to the gallows. The fleeting idea of making a break for it darted through Angela's mind, but she wasn't so stupid as to follow that whim. Where could she go on base that Ana would not find her?

They wound up in one of the storage rooms nearby. Down here, away from the dorms, they were unlikely to be overheard or intercepted. The bland walls and metal shelving units were enough to remind Angela of the last time she and Ana had ducked into a closet. But that occasion had been much more pleasurable, and even the memories of it were not enough to ease her pounding heart in the slightest.

"You always practice at the same time. Didn't it occur to you to deviate from routine so I wouldn't know exactly where to find you going behind my back?"

Ana did not look at her. She was looking down at Angela's pistol in her hands. Was she remembering the first time they had stood together to practice, mentor and pupil holding a weapon together? It seemed so long ago now. Angela had looked up at the sniper with stars in her eyes and allowed herself to dream. But she had not envisioned this. She was unprepared for the desperation and guilt rising thick and cloying in her throat.

"I never wanted to go behind your back."

"Never _wanted?_ Did she force you into it? Hold a knife to your throat?"

Angela silently begged Ana to turn around, to look at her.

"...No."

"No. Hmm."

"I just wanted to help her. You don't understand, Ana, she really—"

At last Ana turned, no longer the statue, but the instant their eyes met Angela regretted ever wishing for it. The older woman's anger was written on her face in cold, contemptuous lines. Her gaze burned into Angela's as if seeking to turn her to ashes where she stood. Angela could not stand it, could not look away.

"I am not your _Ana_! Who do you think you are to me? What will it take for you to learn your place? You have the audacity to tell me you understand my daughter better than I do? You know nothing about her and nothing about me. You see a problem and think it requires your intervention, think you know better than everyone else, like people are viruses and you hold the cure. I will tell you this, Angela Ziegler: you are not so saintly. You are not so smart."

It was Angela who was frozen now, who could do nothing but stand and stare with her mouth half-open and cold tears spilling down her cheeks.

Three months ago she had flown with a team to western Russia and caught a bullet in the shoulder during the ensuing firefight. It had not hurt like this. She did not think anything else had ever hurt like this.

Ana stared at her for a few more moments. Her face was still and composed once more. Then she tossed the pistol to the ground, pushed around Angela, and exited the little storage room. She left the woman who had been student and lover to her standing alone there, silently sobbing.

* * *

For two days the words rang in her head. They were like a song too catchy to be rid of. To the pulse of a dull, imagined drumbeat they sounded over and over again while she went about her business. In the shower, over the operating table, running tests in her office:

_You are not so saintly. You are not so smart._

Nobody was there to ask her what was wrong. Mei-Ling was thousands of kilometers away. Torbjörn was cooped up in his workshop while he developed some new weapon. And who else was there? Who else had there ever been?

What would she say even if she had someone to whom to say it?

The evening of the second day she was in her room, nursing a Radler and reading on her tablet but taking in none of it, when there was the dreaded knock on the door at last.

Angela couldn't be certain of who was on the other side. She was certain only that she didn't want to see them, didn't want to see anyone. When she opened the door and saw Ana standing there, she only felt sicker.

She cast her eyes to the side.

"Captain Amari."

She could not expect an apology. It would be presumptuous to expect an apology. She was the one who had done wrong.

Ana looked at her. It was several long moments before she spoke.

"May I come in?"

The pit in Angela's stomach broadened. She tasted acid in her throat. But there was nothing for it but to nod and step back. She kept her eyes averted.

Ana gestured wordlessly at the end of the bed, and when Angela nodded again, she sat and patted the sheets next to her. Angela obediently joined her there. Side by side they sat, not touching, staring down at their own feet on the cold tile floor.

"Why did you think it was a good idea?" Ana asked without preamble.

Angela swallowed. She considered her words more carefully than she had the day before for fear that her superior would lose her temper again.

_You are not so saintly. You are not so smart—_

"Fareeha has...grown up in your shadow. Seeing everything you've done, with a mother such as you, isn't it natural that she would want to do that too? She wants to protect people, to help the world. Isn't that a good thing? And...who wouldn't want to be like you?"

She finished with her mouth dry and her heart pounding. Ana had not interrupted. Maybe that was a good sign.

Ana was silent. Ten seconds passed, thirty, a minute.

"The blind desire to make the world a better place is—misguided. Dangerous. I regret it, her living like that. She deserves so much better than this."

"Doesn't she—" Angela's voice broke. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Doesn't she deserve to be able to make her own decisions?"

Ana's hands, positioned on her knees, tightened into claws. Angela saw, wanted to reach over and pry them free, intertwine their fingers. But she did not. She was not sure that touching was a thing she was allowed anymore.

"She doesn't understand. You don't either. Angela—"

She paused to take a shuddering breath. Angela dared to glance up, and what she saw shocked her enough to almost stop her heart altogether.

There were tears glittering on Ana's eyelashes.

She looked away, hurriedly, not wanting to see. Ana did not cry. She was not someone like Angela, prone to the weakness of tears.

"This is not glamorous work. Not heroic. It's just...a job that needs doing. The worst job in the world. Pulling the trigger and watching the life leave someone else's body, watching your comrades gunned down in front of you—saving people doesn't make it worth it. Eventually you don't even hear thanks anymore. You just hear screams."

Angela, looking at Ana's lap, saw when the first drops fell, staining her pants a little darker.

"If I let Fareeha do this, it will destroy her. Even if she doesn't die, she will see countless others die. She will take up their deaths upon her shoulders until she cannot walk upright. I will not let this happen to her. No matter how much she resents me, hates me, I will not let her follow the path I have chosen."

"Is that how it feels for you?" Angela whispered. She looked up. Ana's face was curiously expressionless even as the tears came. She stared through Angela like she wasn't even there, like she was talking to herself.

"Or so I told myself. That I could protect her no matter what. But I cannot. She will make her own choices now, and she will make the wrong choices. I can't do anything. I can only—watch.

"Saving the world—stupid. Even during the Crisis, it was all I could do to protect the people within arm's reach. Somehow we did it; somehow we won. And when I had Fareeha, I thought there was hope, that things could really change.

"But now? Amélie. Gérard. You think you're the only one who counts names? Fareeha, too, might as well already be gone. Nothing I've done has really mattered. It's the same as it ever was, whether we're fighting omnics or _Talon._ "

Her tears had slowed. She still looked blank, empty. Tired.

"Please, An—Captain Amari." Angela reached out to touch her hands. Ana did not object to the touch, so she moved her hands to her cheeks, wiped away the tears, leaned in to kiss her. Ana allowed the press of their lips.

Much too soon she placed her hands on Angela's chest and pushed her, gently but firmly, away. Angela went with it, pliant and ineffective. But then Ana's hands went for the clasp of her jacket, and she was pulling it off and tossing it away. The shirt underneath, too, leaving her in a black sports bra. Simple. Practical.

Angela could not look away. She was realizing that she had never seen Ana like this before, never really seen her at all, been given only enough of a glimpse to allow her mouth to meet Ana's cunt.

She wanted to run fingers and lips across the muscle and folds of Angela's stomach, to undress her completely, to be allowed to kiss every inch of her.

She waited for permission, for words, for anything.

Ana did not meet her eyes. She stared across the room and rubbed one hand across her face.

"I'm old," she said. "I'm tired."

"Fifty is hardly old," Angela said.

"Tell me that when you're fifty."

There were scars on her skin too, mottled patches of darker and lighter flesh. Bullets and bombs and shrapnel making a patchwork of a woman. Her body was a continent weathered by erosion and time and natural disaster.

It was so beautiful, Angela thought, the evidence of battles etched into her skin. A woman who had seen and done and _been_ more than she could ever imagine.

"Please, can I touch you?" she breathed.

Ana looked at her, gave a sad little smile that did not reach her eyes, and snorted.

"Suit yourself."

Angela fell to her like a wave to the shore, pulled by a force beyond her will. Her lips met the soft skin and steely muscle of Ana's stomach. It was so warm under her lips.

"I'm hardly even a soldier anymore. I'm not a hero, Angela. Just—a person."

"No," Angela protested. Her hands joined her exploration of Ana's body. When her fingers slipped under the band of Ana's bra, the older woman shifted to pull it off herself. It joined her jacket and shirt on the floor by the bed, and her breasts lay free before Angela's eyes. As lovely as the rest of her, the lines and wrinkles telling the story of a woman who had swollen with pregnancy, given birth and fed a child.

"Look at you," she said. She almost didn't dare touch. This seemed forbidden territory, as if her hands would profane Ana's skin. "You fought a war. You help lead Overwatch. How can you say you've done nothing? You've done more than any of us. You're so beautiful. Fareeha—she is who she is because of you. So brave, so strong. How could she be anyone else?"

"Hmm." Ana shook her head, still smiling that sad smile. Her own hands moved to cover Angela's, to guide her fingers to her skin. Given that permission, Angela touched. Ana's breasts were so soft, her dark nipples and areolas silky-smooth. Angela was tentative at first, just stroking, feather-light. Then she grew bolder.

"Is it all right?" she asked, while she massaged Ana's breasts and rolled her nipples.

"Yes, it's fine," Ana chuckled. "I'm not made of glass, Angela."

"No, you aren't," Angela agreed, though she didn't use the affirmation to become rougher in her ministrations. Instead she lowered her lips to Ana's skin. She kissed her neck, let her teeth out and sucked. She half-expected Ana to stop her, but she did not. Angela continued down her throat and to her collarbone, her mouth leaving a trail of kisses and bites. Ana's skin was warm underneath her, smelling and tasting of sweat. The scent did nothing to dissuade her. On the contrary, she drank it in, savoring it.

"You're stronger than that," she began again. Her words came out as whispers in between wet kisses to Ana's breasts. "You've survived so much. You fought through the Crisis. You are a hero. To the world—" She hesitated. Was it too much to say? The words were there, on her tongue. Her truth demanded speaking, so she closed her eyes and let it go. "—to me."

"Angela," Ana sighed. She lifted a hand to comb through Angela's loose hair. The motion sent pleasant shivers down Angela's spine. "You see what you want to see. You don't understand. I'm not invincible. Gérard—Amélie—it could have been any of us. Reneau. It could—ah, _yes,_ that's good." Her words were interrupted by Angela's mouth closing around a nipple and worrying it between her teeth. She took several measured breaths before continuing. "It could be me. Someday it will be. And if Fareeha goes the same way, someday it will be her, too. I cannot protect everyone. You cannot save everyone."

The words were a dull knife in Angela's chest. She closed her eyes and tried not to feel the pain. She focused on the firm nub in her mouth. When at last she pulled back, a trailing string of saliva connected her to Ana's breast.

"But what if—what if I could?" she said. An idea spoken aloud for the first time. Something that had used to be a fairy tale but was now closer and closer to reality.

Ana looked up at her, eyebrows arched, saying nothing.

"It's possible," Angela said. "I've been working on it. I wanted to tell you sooner, but the time wasn't right. If I had worked faster—Gérard—"

No. That was not the thing on which to focus. She shook her head clear and tried again.

"I've run experiments on rats. The technology enhances cell regeneration and regrowth. Not just for healing wounds, but even after the heart stops—even after significant damage—" She stared down at Ana, her eyes misting over. She blinked rapidly to disperse the tears. She was thinking of all the people she had failed to save. All the people who had been beyond her power to save. "Resurrection," she whispered. "Imagine it. Fighting without the fear. You _and_ Fareeha. Everyone. We could keep going forever."

Ana's smile was gone. She was looking up at Angela with her brow furrowed and her mouth slightly open. It was not disbelief. It was not any reaction that Angela had expected, and she did not understand.

"Tell me you're joking," Ana rasped.

"N—why would I be joking?"

"You're actually doing it? You think you can give life?"

"I don't _think._ The tests I've been running have _worked._ I'm telling you it's possible. You wouldn't have to be afraid anymore, for anyone. Not for yourself, not for Fareeha—"

" _Stop trying to play God, Angela_!"

She had no response for that, so she said nothing, shocked into silence by the vehemence in her commander's tone and the look on her face.

"You think that's a good thing, fighting without end? Fear on the battlefield is a good thing. What would you know? How many times have you drawn your pistol? How many have you killed? You want to stand back and turn the rest of us into immortal soldiers?"

"No! That's not—"

"And what of the rest of the world? You think they wouldn't find out soon enough? You want Talon to get ahold of it? The UN could order you to turn it over to them, and what then? You want a world with dictators who never die, where armies fight forever because nobody can ever lose?"

"I don't want any of that," Angela said. The tears she had tried to blink back were soaking her cheeks now. "Just for us. Just for _you._ "

"You want power over life and death," Ana said. "You want to be the arbiter. You don't want to lose anyone so you don't have to mourn. It has nothing to do with the rest of us. You just want to prove yourself the best and ensure you'll never suffer again."

She was not as angry as she had been when she had reprimanded Angela in the supply closet. Her face was not the same mask of fury. There was no venom dripping from her words; indeed, she spoke almost gently.

It hurt.

"I'm not like that," Angela said.

She was no longer in the room. She was five years old, in the arms of the nice woman from next door, asking why they weren't waiting for her parents. She was screaming and bargaining and praying in the shower, under the covers at night, anywhere when other people wouldn't hear. She was alone and grabbing on to anything she could reach. She was desperately looking for something that would so much as dampen the wound that nobody else could see.

Ana laughed a little. The knife twisted deeper.

"Aren't you? You already think you're an angel."

"Please stop."

It was hard to breathe. She was gasping for air and unsure why there was none coming in with each labored breath. It was hard to see. The room was a kaleidoscope of color and light, viewed through water. The tears would not stop.

She was not gasping for breath. She was sobbing.

" _Habibti._ " Ana was clothed again. Her hand was gently stroking along Angela's part. She wrapped her other arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. Her lips pressed down onto Angela's hair. "Have a good night."

She was sliding off the bed; she was standing; she was closing the door behind her; she was gone.

Angela was still crying. The fractured world around her shimmered and swayed. Her nose was running, but when she could force air through it she could smell Ana on her sheets. For the first time she wished she couldn't.

* * *

The mood on the transport was silent and tense. The agents all knew that they were walking into something different from any of their previous missions. This would not be omnics or an isolated terrorist group; this was an organization that had set out to counter Overwatch and everything for which it stood. An organization that now had grown bold enough to orchestrate attacks that would draw the public eye. Ana wondered if that wasn't the point. They would go, fight, free the scientists, and the world would know that along with Overwatch came Talon, ready to endanger innocents to accomplish their aims.

"Ana."

Her head jerked up. Jack was standing in front of her, holding a handle for support and swaying slightly with the motion of the ship. He looked as grim as anyone else, but his jaw was set and his face was determined. Whatever his doubts and worries, he was their Strike Commander. He would lead them to the end. This was what he was suited for. Fighting in the field alongside his troops had always been much more his way than staying safe at home and giving orders.

"You all right?" He spoke quietly to avoid drawing the attention of anyone else. Ana glanced around again. Singh was sprawled across four seats, his mouth open as he drooled a little. Mrembe's mouth was set in a hard line as she stared down at her tablet—either news or a crossword puzzle; it was hard to tell. Nobody was paying overt attention to their commanders.

"I'm fine." Her fingers played along the stock of her rifle. It was sure and solid to the touch. She knew how to aim and shoot. That was all she needed to do.

She did not need to think of Fareeha, angry and defiant. Angela, tearful and indignant. Angela's mouth at her breast.

She shivered.

"You seem distracted."

"And you're not?" She met his eyes. Another argument with Gabriel? Another nasty newspaper article? Gérard still heavy on their shoulders?

"We just need to do what has to be done," he muttered. looking away.

"Yes." Her fingers tapped away idly. She was tired, not because they'd left in the dead morning, not because she hadn't been sleeping well, but because of everything else that had happened. There was something she hadn't had the chance to say to Angela but that had echoed in her head ever since.

_Old soldiers deserve to rest._

This was not the time for that. This was the time for a different mantra, the one that had pushed her through the crisis. She could, at least, protect the people in front of her. Her team.

A mantra that had proved itself false too often recently.

She tried to banish her ghosts from her mind as the transport flew steadily on, bringing them all closer and closer to Talon and the uncertain confrontation that awaited them.


	4. Asphodel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my love follows you to the grave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (More) rocks fall, everyone (else) dies.
> 
> I added the "Major Character Death" tag because even though technically nobody dies here who doesn't die in canon, it's still dealing with the fallout of Ana's death...and maybe I should tag anyway for like Gérard's death even though he did die in canon? Honestly, who knows how to tag? Not me.
> 
> Welcome to the twenty-thousand word angst-fest that is chapter 4. I wish that was an exaggeration. I thought about splitting it in two, but I decided against it. Chapter 5 will also probably be a monster. 
> 
> Here are where the timeline deviations come into play, namely that we know from the Uprising event that canonically Ana was still around when Uprising occurred. 
> 
> There are..........minor.....moments....of Gency.......I am so sorry. I assure you that nobody is more perturbed by this than I am.
> 
> My Japanese is rudimentary and probably shaky. Hover for translation.
> 
> Thank you very much to everyone for reading, kudos-ing, and commenting. I've been trying to be more responsible about replying to comments, but please know that even if I don't respond, I very much appreciate them.
> 
> Also, we have a cover now! Hooray! Do you like it?

The world was out of focus around her.

Her first time off-base since. Her first time outside since. It was too much. The sunlight swallowed her whole. Somehow it seemed so much closer here than it did in Switzerland, even given the difference in altitude. There were no mountains. Nowhere to hide. Just the sun washing everything away. She waited impatiently for it to burn her up too.

She looked anywhere but forward. There were so many people there. She had thought Gérard's funeral large, but this was different. Her fellow agents were all around her. She had seen so many of these people on the operating table, sewn them up, healed them in the field. They were faceless and unimportant now. She would trade them in a heartbeat.

Not just Overwatch, either. Soldiers and former soldiers Ana had fought alongside before joining the strike team. Members of the Egyptian parliament and even the president were in attendance. He had already spoken, his words drifting through Angela's ears without registering at all.

Morrison and Reyes were in the front with heads bowed and faces grim. They had spoken too, provided memories of a woman who no longer was. Their voices had not wavered. They had not cried. They might have been addressing a team after a failed mission. Angela hated them for it. She wanted their voices to break and shake. She wanted someone else to scream and cry and fall apart so that would have an excuse to follow. She did not want to stand there, limp and still, and accept everything happening around her.

But she did. What else was there to do? Like when she was a child, she cried in the safe silence of her own room. In front of others, she just stood, dull-eyed, waiting for the crowd to push her back onto the transport to return her to work.

The whole ceremony felt like a dream. This place, sitting outside with the sun reflecting blindingly off glass buildings and the white sand, felt unreal.

Someone was reading from the Qur'an now. His voice lilted up and away into the mild air, beautiful and unearthly, carrying Angela further and further from that time and place. She was drifting on desert winds and looking down at the sands of Ana's home as if she would find her there. No body. Pronounced dead in absentia. Couldn't she appear and walk down the aisle of her own funeral, laughing at them all for their somber faces and words?

Angela needed her to appear. She _needed_ someone there to hold her, to wrap solid arms around her and let her bury her face in a warm chest. Someone to stroke her hair and whisper sweet words in her ear. Someone to tell her that everything would be all right. Someone to tell her that she was loved.

There was nobody. There had never been anybody. Not since she was a child in temporary homes; not since she was in school, hearing praise that satisfied but still left her feeling empty; not since the only woman she had ever loved had disappeared on a transport and never come back again.

She did not cry. She wanted to. She felt tears burning in her eyes and blinked them away, reciting chemical compounds in her head to distract herself. What was the use of keeping the secret any longer, now that one of them was gone? She could wail it, scream it as loud as her lungs would allow, crumple to the ground in pieces.

_I loved her I loved her I loved her I_

The ceremony ended without her realizing. She was swaying on her feet and lost in the light and her own head. People were moving around her, shuffling back to their lives. They had come and paid their respects, and now they could go. They could recover. Angela did not think she could do the same.

"Hey, Doc. Doc."

The voice pulled her from her daze. She blinked, stupidly, to take in the figure in front of her. Jesse McCree was in a suit coat and slacks, his hat clutched to his chest.

"What is it?"

"You doing all right?"

He had been a pupil of Ana's too. She remembered her jealousy in the medbay that winter night, years ago now. How stupid it had been. She had not been content with her little piece of heaven. She had tried to claw out more and had fallen from the sky.

"I'm—fine."

She was not crying, at least. That was an achievement in itself.

"Well, group of us are gonna get drinks before we head back. You want to join?"

"Oh, I should really be getting back to work—" she began to protest without even having really considered the proposition at all, but McCree forestalled her.

"Boss said it's okay," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. She followed the gesture to find Reyes standing a few feet away, glowering in their general direction. She caught his eye and he nodded, though his expression did not lighten whatsoever.

Angela faltered. If her plans were more or less to return to the base and drink anyway, would it make that much of a difference to go out with them? Would it make her feel better to be around people?

A voice in the back of her mind reminded her that she did not deserve to feel better, that Ana was gone and would never feel better again, that she was selfish to drown her grief—

"Who else is going?"

"We are," Fareeha Amari announced, joining them. She looked better than many of the rest of them. Her face was serious, but not bereft. She was resting one arm on the shoulder of a man Angela had never seen before, but she knew at a glance who he must be. Fareeha's father was not as tall as her. He had a genial, clean-shaven face and long-cropped hair streaked with silver.

"Thought you didn't drink," McCree said.

"I _don't_." Fareeha rolled her eyes. "And neither does my dad. But we can still come, can't we? Anyway, Dad, you haven't met Angela."

"I haven't." He inclined his head to her. "Sadan al-Ghamdi."

"Angela Ziegler," she said, returning the gesture. "It's—nice to meet you."

She knew what they had in common and could not help thinking of it. He did not know, could not see it on her. She was a stranger at a funeral; a coworker. But the bond he and Ana had shared was alive and visible in the young woman who stood with them.

She realized she was staring but still found it hard to look away.

"You worked with Ana?"

"I—stitched her up once or twice." She tried to smile. The words caught and twisted in her throat and nausea followed. She had not saved Ana's life when it mattered. She had been useless then.

"She's head of medical research." Fareeha looked at Angela and tilted her head. Was she thinking the same thing? Did she blame her? It would be fair—

But then Fareeha's lips were moving upward and she was speaking again.

"Come with us. You don't have to drink if you don't want to. But it's good to be around people, isn't it?"

"Oh, no, I'm definitely going to drink," Angela said without thinking. The other three laughed, to her surprise.

She looked up at the sky and offered a silent apology. Was it okay to forget for just a few moments? Could she be allowed that much? Would Ana forgive her even if she couldn't forgive herself?

The bar was in the midst of the city, at the base of a monstrous skyscraper. Angela let herself be swept along by the others as she stared up and down the streets. She tried desperately to imagine Ana there, Ana walking, Ana living, as if by envisioning it perfectly enough she could summon her.

Inside it was cool and much darker, a welcome relief from the oppressive sunlight. Sunspots swam in Angela's eyes. As she blinked them away a gentle hand on her arm guided across the room.

She ended up sandwiched between Torbjörn and Commander Reyes at the long table. It seemed odd that he had chosen the seat between her and the wall rather than with Jesse and the others, but she had no desire to question him. Soon enough Blackwatch's commander asserted that he would pay for the first round, a declaration that resulted in no small amount of cheers, but his face did not lighten. He looked how Angela felt. Leaden. Drowning.

She had been intending to stick with wine, but when the waiter came around she decided to hell with it, and soon there was a glass of cognac on the table in front of her.

"How are you doing?" she asked Torbjörn, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. Given the loud music playing around them and the rather raucous conversation of the others she had to raise her voice to be heard.

"It's rough." He punctuated the sentence with a swig from his own glass. "It's just gonna get worse."

"Aren't you glad it was Talon and not omnics?" another voice cut in. Both of them turned to look at Reyes, but he ignored their gazes and continued to stare at the wall.

"Why would I be glad it was Talon?" Torbjörn did not say it as a question.

Reyes shrugged.

"So you don't have to blame yourself."

Angela saw Torbjörn's eyes narrow, and for a few brief seconds she found herself afraid that he would lunge across her to attack his superior. She hurriedly leaned forward to act as a physical barrier between them.

"Where's Reinhardt?" she asked, hoping to distract Torbjörn.

He sat back, anger still obvious on his face but abated for the time being.

"He wanted to keep Jack company, make sure he wasn't left alone. Jack didn't want to come out with the rest of us. It's hardest on him, I think—he was there, he's blaming himself—"

A loud snort from Angela's right side, but when she turned Reyes was still just facing forward, giving no indication that he had made the sound.

Torbjörn's jaw worked underneath his beard.

There was a burst of noise from the others. Angela leaned around Torbjörn to see that Jesse had managed to spill what looked like an entire glass of water down his front, and Fareeha was bent double with an arm around his shoulders and hysterical laughter bubbling out of her.

Angela looked forward again. The sound was grating in her ears. She took a sip and then another from her glass and regretted coming.

"It seems to be in bad taste," she said in a low voice. Torbjörn raised his eyebrows.

"Grief looks different on everyone. You don't think Ana would rather see her daughter fall apart, do you?"

Chastised, cheeks red and wishing she hadn't spoken, she shook her head and fell silent.

She was almost finished with her second drink when Reyes spoke again. Torbjörn had become involved with the others' conversation, leaving her and the commander as two grim and silent islands. He didn't seem to be bothered, but Angela was unhappy. It was better to be alone in solitude than to be alone in a group of people.

"How do you feel about Japan, Ziegler?" he asked.

She was taken aback by his speaking at all, to say nothing of the non sequitur.

"I've never been myself. I have colleagues—others in my field—"

"You want to go? Field mission, end of the month."

"What—don't you have your own medic?"

"She's been having issues. Burnt out. Stress overload. Besides, never hurts to have two, does it? Just an offer."

"I—"

She thought about it, really thought about it. If nothing else, it would be a chance to get at least a glimpse of how Blackwatch operated. And she would be away from the base, away from a world that had once contained Ana and where her absence was felt acutely around every corner and in every nook.

"What is the mission?"

He smiled for the first time, but it was a grim expression that conveyed no levity.

"Lot of gang activity out there. One particular clan's got a lot of influence. Drugs, weapons smuggling, human trafficking—well, you can imagine. They're too powerful for us to bring them down without bringing a whole lot of unwanted attention down on us. But the head guy died recently, so we're hoping to negotiate with the heirs. There'll be lots of foul play around a succession. Always is."

"And you want to bring multiple medics?" She took a final drink to empty her glass. The cognac burned down her throat and sat warm in her stomach. She hadn't dared to hope that the alcohol would make her feel better, but she hadn't anticipated being made to feel worse.

She remembered swaying in a room full of people. Ana's fingers ghosting over her hip, tangling in her hair, working against her clit.

She tried to focus in on Reyes's eyes, the serious set of his mouth, but the world around her was blurry, like she was looking through water.

"It could go downhill fast. And if it does, I'd rather not rely on hospitals. But if that scares you away, stay home. Just thought I'd extend the offer."

She set her cup down with more force than necessary, more force than intended.

"Of course I'll go."

* * *

_Dear Captain Amari,_

_I miss you. I miss you more than I've ever missed anything or anyone. ~~When my parents died it was nothing~~ You can call me selfish again. You can scold me all you want. You don't have to look at me. It would be enough to see you again, it would be enough—_

* * *

She had imagined Kyoto or Tokyo, a bustling and vibrant metropolitan area with a neon nightlife, a place in which to lose oneself amidst the crowd. The idea had been appealing. She thought of wandering busy streets alone, invisible, unimportant.

But the village called Hanamura was different. When Angela thought of the mafia, the yakuza, criminal rings, she imagined secrecy, rottenness hiding under an innocent façade. But there was nothing subtle about the sprawling complex of Shimada Castle, nor about the black-suited guards who stared down passers-by. What could be glimpsed of that world through the gates was beautiful, red roofs and sakura trees, but Angela found it hard to appreciate the sight when her gaze kept wandering back to the impassive men with their fingers on the triggers of submachine guns.

"How can they be so open about it?" she asked Reyes on the first night when they were back at their ryokan. Discussion of the Shimadas in public, they had learned earlier, would earn shifty glances and too much attention from other people.

He shrugged. "Probably paying off the mayor, police, politicians higher up. The whole organization's so notorious that Jack petitioned the UN for permission to run a proper mission, but the Japanese government didn't want that. Cited civilian casualties and rebuilding costs whenever the 'watch gets involved." He snorted. "It goes all the way up."

"We _do_ tally up civilian casualties," she said quietly.

He looked at her. "Sure, Ziegler," he said, in a way that was not a recognition of what she had said but rather an invitation for her to say no more.

Her days were mostly her own. Reyes was overseeing the team of Blackwatch agents, who were undercover as representatives from an American drug-smuggling ring. The information-gathering was going well, if the snippets of intel Reyes allowed her were any indication, but the lack of violent clashes left her with little to do.

But in such a place Angela could not be bored. The first few days she was content to stay in the ryokan; between the hot springs, the gracious hostess, and the tranquility of her room, she had no reason to leave. She caught up on her reading, kept in touch with her medical team back in Zürich, and spent long hours lying on her futon and staring at the ceiling.

There were injuries back on base, some serious. Was she shirking her work by coming to Japan, thousands of kilometers away, while she could have been doing more back home?

The thought did not disturb her. The most disturbing thing was how little it bothered her. Death was no longer a hypothetical or a potential. Ana was gone. What did anyone else matter?

She was a failure as a doctor for thinking that. She was a failure for letting Ana die. What did it matter if she was so distant from people who needed saving? She could not change their fates. Ana had been right—she was no god. Just a girl with stupid dreams and bloody hands.

On the third afternoon, when the void of her head and her silent room threatened to drown her, she scrolled through her phone and called Mei-Ling Zhou on a whim.

The phone rang and rang, and she fully expected no answer, but just as disappointment became relief there was the click of the connection establishing and then a familiar and cheerful face was beaming out at her from her screen.

It was weird to see Mei-Ling, not just because of how long it had been, but because seeing another person, even a person not actually there, was a jolting reminder that Angela was not an island. It had been easy to forget that while languishing in the four walls of a lovely room that doubled as a cage.

"Doctor Ziegler!" she said right away. "It's been so long! How are you? How's Switzerland? What's up? There isn't a problem or anything, is there?"

Angela found she was smiling. It felt like a foreign expression.

"Yes—uh, hello—it's very nice to see you," she said, overwhelmed and forgetting Mei-Ling's questions almost immediately.

"You too! It feels like forever since I've been there. If it wasn't for everyone else here, I think I'd go crazy! You're the first person I've seen who's not on the team in months."

"Does it get lonely?"

"Lonely, not really. I'm not alone! It's more like—uh—like—a sweating house?"

"What?"

"The expression—I can't think of it—"

"Oh, cabin fever?"

" _Yes!_ Cabin fever! Sorry." Mei-Ling blushed, looking sheepish. Angela wished she wouldn't; the mental image of a sweating house had already improved her day considerably. "During the storms we can't go out, and they last forever. And even when I do get out, it's just more white everywhere. I never thought I would say this, but I think I'm sick of snow." She shook her head and rested her chin on her hand. Whatever the cold outside, apparently the lab temperature was fine; she was wearing a t-shirt. Behind her Angela could just make out the laboratory, equipment and stainless steel.

"I don't blame you."

"But where are you? That doesn't look like the base—unless we've upgraded?"

"No. I wish. I'm in Japan," Angela said, before it occurred to her that she was probably not supposed to disclose any facts to do with Blackwatch's undercover mission. "I'm taking a bit of a break."

Mei nodded, her face suddenly serious. "It must be hard for you."

"What?"

"Captain Amari's—well. I'm really sorry we couldn't be there for the funeral."

Angela did not want to be forced to remember it, to be forced to talk about it. The name kept ringing in her ears. Her heart was beating too fast. How was it so much worse to hear Mei-Ling speaking of Ana than it was to just think of her?

"Yes," she said mindlessly.

"It seemed like nothing could happen to her, to the three of them. Like they were invincible. And poor Fareeha—it's really scary. It's really sad."

Then Mei-Ling's expression changed. Her eyebrows drew together; her mouth became a determined line.

"But we'll keep going! For her sake. And I'm sure the people who did it will regret it. She would want us to keep fighting, so we have to. Even if fighting is just sitting here and taking measurements. The world is worth fighting for."

Her vehemence took Angela aback. She had never seen Mei-Ling like this before. The passion that drove her work, that enabled her to stay at the remote Ecopoint: Antarctica, was visible, no longer hidden beneath a cheerful smile.

"We could all use that kind of attitude now," she said. "Things are...grim back at base."

She contemplated telling Mei-Ling about her latest project, but almost immediately decided against it. Ana's reaction still left a sour taste in her mouth. It would just live in her, a secret weapon that she alone knew about. Nobody could condemn it if they did not know about it.

"I can imagine," Mei-Ling said. "They aren't great here either. Hydrogen sulfide measurements are up, and the ice is—"

A loud beeping interrupted her. Angela looked around automatically before concluding that the sound was coming from the other end of the connection.

"That's dinner!" Mei-Ling looked over her shoulder and back apologetically. "I should get going."

"Oh, all right."

"Thanks for calling! It was really, really nice to see you! Call again sometime, okay?"

"All right," Angela said. An empty promise.

"Bye!"

Mei-Ling waved, her hands filling the screen, and then she closed the connection.

Angela stared at the black screen. The silence was much more unbearable after the sound of another voice. The solitude was harder after a few minutes of companionship.

She tried to imagine what it would be like to be Mei-Ling. How did it feel to be stranded at the end of the earth, seeing only the same people day after day, with a white and formless world outside the windows?

She looked around at her room, her own bubble, and suddenly felt uneasy at the thought of lying there for much longer.

It was an overcast afternoon outside in Hanamura, for which Angela was grateful. She wandered the city center on foot and tried to take in everything. Shops with signs in kanji and hiragana; a park filled with blooming cherry trees, their branches seeming to hold clouds of cotton candy; trains speeding by, packed with students and workers and everyone in-between.

Inevitably she found herself drawn back toward the gates of Shimada Castle. She bought herself a cup of bubble tea from a stand nearby and stood a block back to survey the compound. Reyes's team had gotten themselves an invite inside, but cursory descriptions of the place surely could not do it justice. She idly wondered whether the Shimadas would ever consider supplementing their criminal gains with funds from opening the place for tours. She would certainly buy a ticket.

The locals all walked past the immense wooden gates as if they couldn't see them. Heads down, eyes at the ground. Ignorance was safer than curiosity.

But even as an obvious tourist, Angela's open gawking was not tolerated for long. She caught sight of two men in dark suits and sunglasses looking back at her, and when one took a step in her direction and she caught the clear outline of a gun under his jacket, she needed no more invitation to turn her back on the castle. Still, she didn't want to return to the ryokan yet.

A gaggle of students, perhaps middle- or high-schoolers, caught her eye at the other end of the street. They were headed into a large building, its metallic paneling standing out compared to its wooden neighbors. Its façade declared _16-Bit Hero_ over a pixilated figure, but the words beneath were in katakana and beyond her comprehension. Curious, and not wanting to linger around the castle gates any longer, Angela followed the students.

It was a game arcade. She had stepped into a world that seemed much more futuristic than the picturesque city outside. It was dimly-lit but expansive interior, several floors populated by a collection of game machines.

Her first instinct was to turn around and walk out again. Video games had held no interest for her even when she was the appropriate age, and at twenty-seven she felt much too old for such a place. But there was a charm to the electronic music and easy atmosphere, and she _did_ have some spare change to spend.

She tried not to notice the gaggle of students she'd followed giving her odd looks as they ascended the stairs toward the vending machines. Certainly she didn't need confirmation that she was out of place here. She settled at a game close to the door bearing the title _The Lost Vikings VI_ and put in her money.

It was _stupid_ , and she was _awful._ One session became two became four, and with each game she only became more and more frustrated. The controls were unintuitive, her little spaceship couldn't fire its laser fast enough, and she really thought her money should buy more than three lives.

But somehow it was still fun to pour all her attention into the screen, to destroy meteors and aliens and watch her score inch upward.

A half-hour had slipped by without her noticing when noises outside began to drown out the music coming from her machine. There were angry voices, tires, running feet, all things that had her instantly tense.

Was it to do with Blackwatch? Was this an ordinary occurrence given Shimada Castle a block away?

She wanted to get as far away as possible, to get back to the ryokan, but she was in a strange city and ignorant of the streets and the language. Her room had felt too small; now Hanamura was too big. All she could do was huddle over her machine, her spaceship shredded yet again, and feel vulnerable.

A few seconds two young men tore down the street and into the arcade. They were breathing hard, sweating, but the one in the lead was laughing. As soon as Angela noticed that, she noticed the shock of neon-green hair atop his head.

" _Nidoto shinai,_ " the second man panted, once he was safely hidden in the arcade with his back against the wall. " _Kimi no atama ga hen._ "

" _Nee, hiyashite. Nanbito mo koko ni hainai_ ," his friend responded, still laughing. He pushed his lurid hair back from his sweaty forehead and then seemed to notice he was being watched. Angela looked hurriedly back at her screen, currently flashing _GAME OVER,_ but not quickly enough.

She heard his footsteps as he crossed the few meters between them, felt his presence over her shoulder. Her heart still would not calm.

"Yo," he said. "I haven't seen you in here before."

His tone was friendly, at ease.

Angela remained fixed in place and unsure how to proceed. Make a run for it? Pretend she only spoke German? Ignore him completely?

She was about to default to the third option when he spoke again.

"If you want me to leave you alone, just say the word."

She half-turned. He was leaning against one of the machines behind her. His legs were crossed and his smile was cocky; he might have owned the world.

"Do you know everyone who visits this arcade?" she asked.

His grin widened. "Sure. I know everyone in Hanamura. Everyone who's worth knowing, anyway, and you seem worth knowing."

Was he hitting on her?

Angela fully turned and took him in more thoroughly. He wore a white tank top that showed off his muscled arms and skinny black pants. There were slim chains dangling from his belt loops. His face was good-natured, with a piercing through one eyebrow and several more in the cartilage of the opposite ear. It was difficult to gauge his age, though he did look older than the students she'd followed in.

His friend was still standing by the door, arms crossed and looking annoyed.

" _Genji.Ikimashō._ "

" _Usero_ ," the green-haired man said, waving a dismissive hand. Clearly indignant, his friend poked his head out the door, looked up and down the street, and then left the arcade.

"He's no fun." Green-Hair was still smiling. Angela's heart was no longer pounding. A conversation was not what she was looking for, but he did not seem threatening. "You try to show a guy a good time and he freaks out."

"Were you being chased?"

His smile flickered for the first time, but he regained his composure in an instant. If she had blinked, she would have missed it.

"Sure I was. Wouldn't you chase me?"

There was something endearing about such bravado, and Angela found a reluctant smile making its way onto her face.

"I don't think so."

He pouted. Somehow the expression suited his face rather than making him look childish.

"Maybe I'm not as charming as I thought."

"Maybe you should keep trying," Angela said. A daring thing to say. She didn't know what she was doing. The words burned through her mouth and left a corrosive taste like battery acid. She didn't care. She kept looking.

His smile bounced back, this time broadly enough to show off his teeth.

"Can't turn down an invitation like that. I'm Genji."

"Angela," she said, before it occurred to her that perhaps she should have lied.

"Where are you from, Angela?" He matched her pronunciation well, lips curling around her name. It was the wrong mouth and the wrong accent, but it was almost close. She could settle for almost close.

"Switzerland." Another truth that should have been a lie.

"You come from Switzerland to Hanamura and waste your time in a game center?" He glanced over her shoulder at the screen. "And on _Space Vikings_? Come on."

"What would you recommend I do instead?"

"Well, if you wanted a tour guide, you have a great one right here," he grinned. "We can find some more age-appropriate hangouts." The tip of a pink tongue ran along his teeth and around his lips. Angela watched, hypnotized. He was being inappropriate, but she found that she didn't mind as much as she should have. "And I'm flexible about payment."

"What do you charge?" Her cheeks were pink. It felt good. _Gott,_ it felt good to be wanted, even by a stranger who was also apparently an incorrigible flirt.

"For you? Nothing. I feel like I should be paying you for the pleasure of this conversation."

She looked over his shoulder. A couple of the students upstairs were quite openly watching them. When they caught sight of Angela looking back they turned away hurriedly, giggling.

Reality came crashing back on her shoulders with all the suddenness and force of a bomb. She remembered where she was and why she was there. She remembered who she was. Ana's death opened a fresh pit in her stomach and left her aching as she stared at the face of the young man in front of her.

Shame was not so easily suppressed. The acidic taste in her mouth intensified. She was flirting like a child while Blackwatch's agents risked their lives. She was playing coy while Overwatch funded her hotel bill. She was considering spreading her legs while Ana was still fresh in her grave.

"I have to go," she said.

His smile disappeared. He managed to actually look concerned, like he cared about her as a person rather than as a conquest.

"Angela—?"

She did not look at him. She tried not to listen to him saying her name. She walked past him and through the sliding doors and out onto the street. She walked as fast as she could without running. She felt certain that she was about to throw up. Half of her wanted to go back and throw herself at the mercy of the Shimadas' ruthless guns. The other half forced her feet to keep moving.

* * *

_Dear ~~An~~ Captain Amari,_

_Japan is beautiful. I am thinking of you. ~~I wish we could share the onsen, wish you would take me in the futon~~ I don't know why Commander Reyes brought me. Can he see it? Can he see me thinking of you? Does he miss you too? I don't think anyone could hurt like I hurt—_

* * *

There was something wrong.

With the air, with her head, with the store.

The buzzing had been prickling at her eardrums the whole time she had been sitting there. She had written it off as the hum of the shopfront's lights. But as she ordered, paid, ate her ramen, the sound was only growing louder and louder, higher and higher-pitched. It sounded now like a dentist's drill and went through her head like the real thing. She was not prone to migraines, but she was wondering if this wasn't one. The lights were too bright, the air suffocating, and every second that the sound went on she felt sicker and sicker.

"Do you _hear_ that?" she finally broke down and asked. The man across the counter looked up.

" _Sumimasen?_ "

"That— _sound._ Is there construction near here—?"

She was regretting eating. She was going to throw it up. She wasn't even sure if she could stand up without pushing her stomach over the edge, let alone make it all the way back to the ryokan.

The chef looked around and shook his head.

"I don't think so."

"It must be..." But her voice trailed away, because she did not know what it must be. A shrill whine that was piercing her skull, making her eardrums ring and her whole body feel _wrong._

Tinnitus? Misplaced stress?

"I'm sorry," she finally muttered, pushing her half-full bowl back across the counter. "It was delicious, I just can't—"

Without waiting for him to respond, she pushed off her stool and left.

She had to catch herself on the wall just outside as a wave of nausea more powerful than anything she had felt in _years_ rolled over her. Her stomach roiled, and she was certain that she was going to lose its contents then and there. She forced herself to gasp in breaths of cool night air. Her eyes were watering. The sound was still there.

Somehow she managed not to throw up, to push herself off the stone and stagger onward. She couldn't remember the way back to the ryokan, but even just the thought of the glow of her phone screen made her eyes hurt. She just walked drunkenly, aimlessly. She did not notice the curious looks of passers-by. She did not pay attention to her route. She stared down at the street as she forced her feet to keep moving.

The pitch of the buzzing in her head had changed. It had lost its tinny, unbearably high-pitched quality. Now it really did sound more like the hum of distant machinery, some massive construction project. Could that be it? Surely it was too late in the evening for that.

It was louder, too. And as she turned her head this way and that, she could hear from which direction it was coming.

She picked up speed. A brisk walk; a half-run. With every step her head pounded and her body protested, but she kept going. She needed to find its source or collapse trying. She had her phone on her; Gabriel could always track her down.

The streets were sloping downward. She realized that she was circling the hill on which Shimada Castle stood. When she looked up she could see it, its massive wooden walls stained silver in the moonlight. Beautiful and tranquil.

At the base of the hill there was a park where a river flowed through the heart of Hanamura. The walls of the castle loomed high before Angela. But for the lamps throughout the park, she might have taken a step back several hundred years.

She could not hear her footsteps or the sound of the river. She could only hear the pulse of an all-consuming tone. It crashed in her head like waves, like cymbals. Her ears and mind protested the sound. Her eyes felt as if they would burst. It was there, in the grass, that she finally fell forward and vomited.

When she lifted her face, tear-streaked, sweat-stained, she saw it.

A light different from the others was shining next to the river. Its neon-green light flickered and pulsed wildly, but even so it illuminated the huddled mass under it.

Barely standing, barely sane, Angela made her way to the muddy bank and collapsed on hands and knees beside the form.

When her eyes took in the light, she knew that she was already dead. She had been shot; she was feverish out of her mind; she was hallucinating. What she was seeing was not reality. It could not be reality.

The source of the greenish glow was a creature like the one carved on the gates above them. It was a beast composed of chartreuse scales and claws and fangs. It looked at her, mouth open, and she understood two things: that it was making the sound, and that what she had mistaken for the crashing of waves were in fact _words—syllables._

_NA SA KE NA SA KE NA SA KE_

"What is this?" she screamed, unable to hear her own voice. Everything was bile and pain and those three syllables, over and over again. "Stop it!"

_NA SA KE NA SA KE NA SA KE_

She wanted to wake up. She wanted to die. Her head was going to split open. She did not know where or who she was. She was lying on a muddy riverbank in a pool of her own blood. All she could see was blue light and a face she had never known twisted into a mask of fury. But she had a name for him, and she had a name for the impossible being before her.

" _Ryūjin_!"

Silence.

Her world righted itself.

Her head still hurt and her stomach still heaved, but the sound was gone. She was herself again, on hands and knees, staring into the glowing face of a dragon sculpted from light.

It opened its jaws again. Angela recoiled, certain that her ears were going to start ringing again, but it did not restart its horrible scream. Instead there was just a single plaintive note from its throat, a sound not dissimilar to the whine of a crying dog. Its form flickered. For an instant it lost its shape, like liquid spilling from a glass, before reforming.

Without the pain of its voice echoing in her head, she could focus enough to look at the thing on which the dragon was huddled. In the green glow she slowly made out legs, arms, a torso. A human lying face-down in the mud.

She was reluctant to reach out. The creature that couldn't exist kept its eyes fixed on her. Could something unreal hurt her? Surely she was going to wake up any second now and it didn't matter what she did. But still she was cautious as she reached trembling fingers toward the limp form.

The cloth felt real under her hands. It was wet. In the glow from the little dragon she could see the discoloration on her fingers.

"I need to turn him over," she said. Her voice shook. Were there other people in the park? Could they hear her? Was any of this actually happening?

The beast seemed to understand. Reluctantly it uncoiled itself, slipping onto the grass. Angela crawled forward. Weak and ill as she was, it was an effort to roll the body onto its back, but she managed.

She hardly needed light to see the wounds. The front of the man's _kyudo-gi_ was open as if to frame the gash that cut from shoulder to hip, the gouge in his stomach that went cleanly through. The exposed skin itself was discolored, burned or bruised, like the outer layer had been stripped cleanly away. On his face it was the same, lips and nose and skin lacerated, inflamed. His eyes were wide and unseeing.

The flesh was wet and swollen under her touch. His mouth was half-open, but she couldn't feel air coming in or out; he was not breathing. But his pulse thudded hard and insistent through her hand.

The dragon cried out again. She looked at it and realized that its light pulsed gently with each heartbeat she felt under her hand.

He was alive.

A sort of desperate terror thrummed through her. Maybe this was a fever dream. Maybe she would wake up in the ryokan or in Switzerland or in hell. But he was there and he felt real and he was on the verge of death. She could save him. She had to save him. It was not a question of her abilities. She would do it. While she was there _his heart would not stop beating._

"I will," she said to the dragon, and then a bit of what little Japanese she knew. " _Daijōbu._ "

The little creature closed its eyes and pressed its forehead to her hand. A feeling like an electric shock jolted through her. She felt like her blood was on fire. A different sort of roar rushed through her ears now as adrenaline filled her.

She fumbled for her phone.

* * *

_Captain Amari—_

_—watch me._

* * *

"I can't believe this."

"I can't either," Angela murmured. She was trying not to pay too much attention to the sound of Commander Reyes' heavy boots on the creaking wooden floor, but it was hard not to when the room was otherwise so utterly silent.

She was trying, rather, to listen to the shallow gasps coming from the man lying on the floor. This all-but abandoned house at the edge of the city was not her ideal operating room, but given that she could hardly drag a dying man to the ryokan she was making do. The light of her staff was suffusing him for the time being, keeping him hanging on, but she didn't know how long that would last.

"My team hasn't even met Genji Shimada face-to-face because he's too lazy to show up to meetings, and then you find him dead on a riverbank—"

" _He is not dead._ "

"It's just _weird,_ Ziegler. How did you manage that? How did you find him?"

"It's—I told you. I was just walking."

The dragon was gone. When she looked at her patient she could sometimes see a glimmer of unnatural green curling around his arm or stomach, but the little creature did not reappear. She was not certain that she had not imagined it. She was more certain that this was not a dream, but not entirely so. She'd had no explanation for Reyes when he had arrived, when he'd driven them to the safehouse his team had also been frequenting. She hardly had an explanation for herself.

In the light he looked worse. But in the light, too, she had recognized him. A man who had smiled and laughed easily and flirted. _Angela._ Her name on his tongue. And now he lay in her care, more dead than alive, what wasn't cut burned.

She had not known he was a Shimada. She had not known anything about him. She wondered how these revelations would feel if she'd accepted his proposition after all. How much shame and guilt could one person feel?

Reyes' phone beeped.

"Transport in half an hour."

It seemed much too long a time. Could he survive half an hour? Could he survive the flight back to Zürich?

"I'm sorry to throw this into the middle of your mission," she said.

He grunted.

"We'll just hope nobody else gets cut open too badly. And who knows? Maybe he'll have useful intel for us if he survives."

"You don't think he will."

"No."

"He will," she said. She watched the rise and fall of Genji Shimada's chest, heard his breath come bubbly and gasping. She was fairly certain he'd punctured a lung, and though she had bandaged him as best she could and the Caduceus was helping, she needed more. She needed an operating room and equipment. Part of her feared that even that would not be enough, but she could not tolerate those thoughts. She would not doubt. She would save him.

* * *

_Dear Captain Amari,_

_You were right when you told me I was playing God. But you were wrong when you said it was a bad thing. I will save him. I only wish I could have saved you too._

* * *

The weeks that followed seemed more like years.

The rest of the world vanished. No missions. No other patients. Her existence narrowed to a single room and a single patient's bed in the medical wing. Sleep was a luxury, afforded herself only in extreme exhaustion and only in a chair at his bedside. Food was energy bars or whatever her worried coworkers brought.

The space was far from silent; the beep of his monitors and the steady electrical hum of the various machinery keeping him alive kept Angela company. He could not survive without the life-support devices doing his organs' work. She reached that conclusion by the end of the first week. The other doctors concurred, told her she had done all she could, told her to let him go.

She thanked them for their advice and locked the door behind them.

She could not understand exactly what had damaged him so extensively. The blade wounds were grotesque enough, certainly, but there must have been something else, something that had seared his skin and wrought havoc on his innards. Fire seemed the most likely culprit, but she could not imagine what sort of fire would have left such localized burn marks without also cauterizing his wounds and charring his clothes.

Twice more she saw the dragon. Now that she accepted that the man in her care was real, it was harder to explain away the little neon-green creature. The product of exhaustion and an overworked brain? All she knew was that it looked real, that its little chirps and cries sounded real, and that the second time its claws dug into her skin and left a mark she could see for days afterward.

Both times it appeared, Genji's body had failed. The artificial life maintained by machinery had left him. Then there was the horrible sound in her eardrums again, three syllables crashing over and over in her head.

_NA SA KE NA SA KE NA SA KE_

And both times Angela, with shaking hands, retrieved the project she had been working on in secret, a last-ditch effort that nobody else needed to know about. When everything else that she had ever been taught, ever attempted, would not help him, she put her faith in herself and in the treatment she silently thought of as the Fólkvangr. At the bedstead of a man already dead, Angela looked down with cold eyes and played God.

And both times, the pulse of golden light went through him, and the horrible droning beep on the monitor that indicated a stopped heart became a steady blip again. The cymbals ceased crashing in her ears. The dragon blinked and was gone, leaving her alone.

Wrapped around his right thigh was a tattoo that looked just like the little creature, down to every last intricate detail of its scales and the bright green color. Angela tried not to look at it too much, aware that she should give him his privacy, but it was so beautiful and so intriguing that it was hard to resist.

She did not think about what she was doing. She tried very hard not to think about it. She refused to remember a conversation that had left wounds on her no miracle could cure.

Torbjörn was reluctant at first when she came to him for help.

"I work on _machines,_ not people, that's all on you—"

"Please," she said. "Please. He'll die."

He had agreed, eventually, though he did not look happy about it.

They worked together, Overwatch's chief engineer and head of medical research, as little by little they found and implemented ways to move the life-sustaining systems from his bedside to his person, as they reconstructed a life. Slowly the limp figure under their care stabilized. Angela kept waiting for the long beep, for a little green serpent to appear curled on Genji's chest, but it did not come. Eventually she stopped expecting it.

Reyes, himself returned from Hanamura, visited once, saying very little, and shook his head at the sight of the man on the bed.

"I don't know why you're trying so hard," he said.

"I would be a failure as a physician if I did not do everything in my power to save a life in front of me," Angela snapped. She attributed her short temper to exhaustion. She ignored how uneasy the words felt on her tongue.

Strike Commander Morrison, too, stopped by. He never said much either.

"They're wondering what to do with him," Torbjörn said, pausing in the midst of soldering on his worktable in the corner. "Don't want to ship him back to the Shimadas—'congratulations, kid, medical care and a free flight back to your gang and the rivals who tried to kill you'—but nobody's sure if there's enough evidence on him to put him away. Maybe just turn him over to Interpol."

Not for the first time, Angela felt a pang somewhere in her stomach, the worry that perhaps she hadn't chose so wisely after all.

"Are we saving him to condemn him to a life behind bars?" she asked. She looked over at her patient, his chest mostly obscured by metal plating, an oxygen mask over his face.

Torbjörn shrugged. "You're just doing your job. I wouldn't worry too much about it yet. Besides, can't do much of anything until we wake him up."

"I think soon," Angela said. "Not yet, but soon."

* * *

_Dear Ana,_

_Months now. I still miss you. Will I ever stop missing you?_

* * *

_Soon_ ended up being six weeks after she'd first found him on a riverbank, bloody and all-but dead. His systems were in place, a life-support mechanism that functioned under his skin and in his body instead of at the side of his bed. He had been stable for the past week, and while they were unsure how well it would last on a long-term basis, Angela did not want to keep him in a coma longer than absolutely necessary.

At Jack's insistence, Reinhardt was on hand just outside the door in case she needed help restraining her patient. Angela hardly thought that would be necessary; she doubted that he would react violently. She thought of the young man who had seemed so at home in the arcade, who had slouched against a machine and smiled easily.

Besides, if it came to force, she had a syringe and sedatives handy.

She sat at his bedside and waited. It was hard to know exactly when the drugs would wear off. There was always a chance that he would not wake up, that after all they had done to save his body his brain would fail. Angela refused to entertain that as a possibility. All she could do was catch up on her backlog of research readings and glance his way every few seconds.

Then, once, she glanced over and saw him moving.

His mouth was open, in a yawn or to try to speak, though his eyes were still closed. But the plating there, the mechanisms to assist his lung, were foreign. He jerked his hands up to feel his face, only to realize that his right arm was not the same one he had known either.

Angela saw the reactions on his face, saw the panic, and she pushed back her chair and stood. His head snapped toward her. He seemed to instinctively square his shoulders as if tensing for an attack.

" _Nani—nani wo—_ "

His voice was different now, lent an artificial, echoing quality by the support system they'd installed to replace his failed lung. It would feel different for him too, different to speak, to breathe, to move. A body no longer his own.

"Genji," she said softly. He shook his head and shuddered at the sound of his name. As she stepped closer to the bed, he drew back, but there was nowhere to go but to press into the pillows. His eyes darted around the room, at her, the desk, the tray where her equipment lay.

She had left it in arm's reach, she realized too late.

His movements were jerky, uncoordinated, unaccustomed to a body not quite his own, but they were _fast._ He was on-edge, clearly hyped on adrenaline, and she was running on an hour of sleep and not expecting his attack. As he grabbed for the scalpel and lunged from the bed, tearing his IV out in the process, all she could manage were a few clumsy steps backward.

His flesh hand grabbed her shoulder and pushed her into the wall. It _hurt_ , head knocking back onto cinder blocks, but her attention was for the slim silver blade pressing against her throat.

The Shimadas, the Reyes of her mind reminded her, were not just criminals, but also highly-trained combatants. And she was just a doctor, an idiot, about to die in her own medical bay at the hands of a man she had saved.

— _Ana—_

" _Doko_?" he growled. His eyes were narrow slits, brows furrowed into a dark line. He was unrecognizable as the jovial flirt she'd met in the arcade. " _Dare_?"

"I—I don't—" she stammered.

He made a noise of impatience. She felt the pressure of the scalpel. She needed a weapon, but her pockets had nothing useful, and behind her was only the wall. She should call for Reinhardt. Would he slit her throat if she tried?

"Where is this? What have you done to me?"

"You're in Zürich. I—please, there's no need for this; I'll tell you everything you need to know—"

" _Urusai_!" He shouted it, his hand on her shoulder clamping harder, the scalpel twitching, moving—

It broke skin. She felt it, like a sharp bite or the sting of a needle. She felt blood well up, drip down. Not deep enough to kill; not yet. She stared at him, frozen and unable to react. It hurt. It _hurt._

Then she saw a pair of tiny horns carved of neon-green light appear over his shoulder, followed by a snout and a long, sinuous body.

"Doctor Ziegler!"

The door opened and Reinhardt was _there,_ an immense, stabilizing presence. He pulled Genji away, dwarfing the smaller man. But Genji had already lowered the scalpel, taken it off Angela's throat when the little dragon had crawled down his arm and wound itself around her neck.

She could feel it there, so hot it was surely burning her skin, though she felt no pain. It had the weight and mass of a real thing, even as its scales shone transparent.

"Are you all right—what is that thing?" Reinhardt, still restraining Genji with both hands, leaned in closer. The dragon opened its mouth and hissed, and he drew back.

"I don't know." Angela steadied herself. The cut on her throat throbbed, though the heat from the creature curled there helped. She pushed off the wall. "I think Mr. Shimada will have to tell us that."

With Reinhardt's assistance Angela got Genji back in the bed and his IV back in place. She still didn't want to resort to restraints, a sure way to erode his trust. Reinhardt stayed inside this time, staring the smaller man down. He was certainly quite intimidating when he wanted to be; Angela never wanted to be on the wrong side of his glare.

But Genji seemed calmer now. His gaze flickered back and forth between the two of them and down to Angela's throat.

"You helped me?" he finally said.

"Well, I..."

"She saved your life," Reinhardt rumbled.

Genji looked back at Angela, but this time his expression was different. His brows were furrowed, but his face lacked the anger of a few moments ago. He seemed, rather, to be studying her.

"You were at the arcade," he burst out finally. "On Wednesday. That's how I know you."

Angela swallowed. Of course, what was his last Wednesday was in fact several weeks ago.

"Yes, we met then."

She was a bit surprised that he had recognized her at all, in lab coat and glasses and with her hair tied up. But then, stumbling across a Swiss woman in an arcade in Hanamura was probably a fairly memorable experience.

"Is this really Switzerland? How the hell—why am I here?"

He was agitated again. Angela glanced at Reinhardt and away again. There was always sedation, but this conversation wouldn't get any easier the next time he woke up.

"Genji, do you remember what happened to you? I found you in the park at the base of Shimada Castle. It looked like you had been attacked—do you remember? Was it another—er, the yakuza?"

The dragon, still curled across her throat, let out a soft cry.

Genji would not look at them. He was staring down at the sheets, his hands clenching and unclenching into fists. A glance at the heart rate monitor was enough to show him tensing, anxious.

"Hanzo," he murmured. "Hanzo. _Kuso—_ "

Angela was not expecting tears, was taken aback when they came. Genji pressed his fists into his eyes, but not quickly enough to hide the glimmer there. His hands encountered the metal plating along his chin, and once again he snapped.

"What is this? Why am I here? Where is my brother? What did you do to me? _What did you do to me_?"

Reinhardt stepped forward, but Genji did not lunge from the bed this time. He was too busy looking down at himself, exploring the fixtures attached to his chest, his arm.

"Your condition was severe enough that external life support was necessary." Angela tried to keep her voice from shaking, to pretend she was as calm as she looked. "We needed to make some adjustments—"

" _Adjustments_?"

"Your essential functions are being maintained by those...augmentations. It's very unfortunate, but without them, you would have died."

He looked at her. It was a grim thing to watch the realization set in, to see his eyes widen with slow horror. His fingers scrabbled at the metal, desperately seeking the purchase to get under and tear it away.

"You're going to hurt yourself—" Angela reached into her pocket, searching for the syringe.

"Then I will! There is metal _screwed to my face!_ Did you think I would be okay with this? Did it occur to you to ask before you turned me into a fucking _machine—_?"

Blood welled up from where his fingernails were scratching. That was enough for Angela; she gave a terse nod to Reinhardt, who moved to the bed to hold their patient down.

"This is only a sedative," Angela said, slow and soothing. "We can speak more when you wake up—"

"I'd rather take potassium chloride. Get off of me. Get _off_!"

But Reinhardt's massive arms were not to be moved, and Angela's hand did not shake as she slipped the needle into Genji's neck. For a few moments he kept thrashing violently, futilely, against the giant holding him down, before his eyelids fluttered closed against his will and he went limp in the bed.

Angela sank back into her chair. She needed to clean and dress the cut on her neck. She needed to address her patient's bleeding. She needed to think of a way for the conversation to go better next time. But all she could do was stare at Genji Shimada's face and hear his words ringing in her ears.

"Couldn't have expected much better," Reinhardt rumbled gently. He patted her on the back. "The little snake is still on you. Do you want me to— _ouch—_ "

What had she expected? Gratitude? She had not thought at all of the person who had been so close to death under her hands. She had thought of him in the past tense, the man she met in the arcade, but under her care he was faceless, nameless, a life to be saved. The only thing that mattered.

"I don't know," she said, not knowing what question she was even answering. She brought a hand up to her neck and felt the little electric shock as her fingers made contact with the dragon nestled there. It was vibrating gently, purring, as if pleased with itself for biting Reinhardt.

She did know. She had not been treating Genji Shimada. She had been trying to save a life she was now much too late to save.

* * *

_Captain Amari,_

_I never deserved anything from you I didn't deserve what I got you deserved so much better I just want to see you again I want to feel you again it hurts—_

* * *

The woman had short dark hair and a philtrum piercing. She drank vodka neat and made it look easy, made it look like it was just water disappearing between her dark-painted lips. The smell of it hung on her, sterile, cold. It was the wrong smell. Even in the tight confines of the bar, where everything was alcohol and sweat, Angela hated it. She breathed through her mouth and tried not to think.

The woman introduced herself as Eva, but Angela did not call her that, did not call her anything at all. When they kissed her mouth tasted like her drink. Angela sought out the little piercing with her tongue and played with it. It felt good to have lips against her own, a hungry mouth that was eager to explore her. There in the bar, in front of the world, there were hands slipping under her shirt. Eva had long nails, long enough to leave tracks, long enough to hurt.

It was dark outside when they left the bar, laughing and swaying, and when they tumbled together into her apartment. Nicer than Angela's dorm. Her sheets were soft and with her windows open they could hear cars driving past every few minutes.

Angela tangled her fingers in Eva's hair and breathed hard, cried out. The wicked little piercing kept nudging her clit while its owner's mouth devoured her. It felt good, so good, but wrong.

"You're a screamer, huh?" Eva came up and grinned.

 _You know that already don't say it stop_ talking—

Angela did not have a chance to speak her uncharitable mind, luckily, not when their mouths were pushed together again. She tasted herself on Eva's tongue, tried to lose herself in the kiss, kept feeling the little stud bumping her lip. Their bodies were pressing together, one of Eva's fingernails playing at her clit, the other wrapped around her back. Eva was naked, skin warm, breasts pressing against Angela's, but that was wrong. She always wore clothes, she always wore clothes—

They broke apart. Eva was kissing down her body, sucking on her collarbones, her breasts. Angela closed her eyes again and tried to pretend that she couldn't feel the piercing. The room smelled all wrong around her. The sheets were too soft. She felt loose and dizzy, drunk, unraveling. When a hot mouth wrapped around her clit again, Angela came.

"You're so fucking hot," Eva murmured. She soothed Angela's overly sensitive clit through the afterglow with little licks. When she straightened up again, her mouth was shiny with spit. Her lips were paler now. Angela looked down herself to see dark lipstick smudged on her body. A mark of possession. She should have liked that.

She said nothing to the compliment, just silently dug her hands into Eva's hips and pulled her closer. She wanted to get it over with. Everything was wrong. Even the orgasm hadn't felt how it was supposed to. She was in a stranger's apartment, chasing dreams of a dead woman.

Eva's hair was trimmed and neat, her cunt blushing red as Angela brought her mouth to it. This part was easy, just do what she had done a hundred times before, just work her lips and tongue until the woman under her came apart.

It smelled wrong and tasted wrong. She closed her eyes and tried to keep going. Just finish and then she could go. But instead of completing her task, she was slowing. She couldn't stand it any longer. Everything she was doing and feeling repulsed her.

She came up with her cheeks tear-soaked. Eva was a blurry collection of flesh-colored shapes through her watery eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I—I don't think I can—"

"Hey, you're fine. Don't worry about it." Gentle fingers, careful with the nails, brushed the tears from under her eyes and then swept her hair back behind her ear. The gesture just made Angela want to cry harder.

"I'm sorry," she snuffled again.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine." She said it like she believed it. Like she didn't have to return to the base and to stitching up people who didn't matter, to a patient who refused to look at her without glaring. Like she would ever be able to lose the specter of Ana Amari hanging over her.

Eva got up and returned a few moments later with a cup of water and a box of tissues. Angela accepted the water gratefully. Eva seated herself on the bed beside her, gently stroking her back. Angela very much wished she wouldn't. She didn't want to be touched, to be there at all. Neither did she want to be back on base. Maybe she just wanted to cease existing. To follow the person who had mattered the most to her to the grave.

"I recognized you, you know," Eva said eventually.

That was enough to get Angela's attention.

"What?"

"You're with Overwatch, right? I've seen you. On the news. At first I wasn't sure that you were the same person, but you said your name...you're Angela Ziegler, aren't you?"

A way for a bad night to get worse.

"I..." She looked around for a way to escape. Her clothes were strewn across the floor.

"Not to be weird! I won't tell anyone or anything if you don't want me to. I just wanted to say something. I guess to say thank you."

Angela looked into the face of a woman she had met in a bar, a woman she had desperately tried to use to appease her own memories, and did not think she had done anything worth gratitude.

* * *

_Dear Captain Amari,_

_Eva is not like Ana. Not enough like Ana. I don't know if you can see me now. Don't worry. I feel enough disgust for both of us. You deserved better than me. You still deserve better from me._

* * *

A spirit dragon was an _awful_ nuisance to have in a work environment.

The little serpentine creature she'd come to know was called Ryūjin was catlike in his ability to climb, evade capture, and destroy. If she didn't shut the door carefully every time she left Genji's room, Ryūjin would scurry out, and the next thing she knew cabinets were having their contents thrown on the floor and some poor patient was suffering a heart attack from seeing a miniscule dragon run across their chest.

"Can't you control him?" she asked, exasperated, as she entered Genji's room with a squirming, unhappy Ryūjin hanging from one hand.

The room had changed significantly since she had first brought Genji there. Now, rather than simply one of a few rooms set aside for patients requiring intensive or isolated care, it was a living space. He had a bathroom, a desk. He had a lock on the door operated from the outside.

A cell, really.

"Yes," Genji said shortly.

"You're not just making more work for me, you know. You could endanger another patient."

He shrugged, stubbornly indifferent. He did not say anything, and he didn't have to. He had expressed the sentiment often enough that Angela knew it by heart.

_You can all go to hell._

Carefully she broached a different topic.

"Commander Reyes came by?"

Genji snorted.

"He did."

"What did you say?"

His face was stony as he looked at her. At last Ryūjin managed to flail about enough to lift his head and deliver a sharp bite to Angela's finger. She dropped him with an exclamation of pain, and the dragon scurried back over to his master's bed. He climbed up Genji and then, as Angela had seen many times but which never got any less weird, twined himself about the thigh where the tattoo was and simply melted back through cloth and skin and was gone.

"Thank you," she said.

"What do you think I said? What choice do I really have here? I can't go home because my brother murdered me. You aren't about to just let me die, either, are you? Looks like Blackwatch is the only option left for me."

"Blackwatch does good work," she said. "You can help people."

"I don't give a shit about 'good work,' _Angela._ " The same name that had rolled off his tongue so jovially in the arcade was now only ever laced with venom. "I can take down every last damn Shimada who wanted to get rid of me, and that's what I care about."

"Well, you'll be doing us and the world a favor, even if you don't care about that."

"Is that why you _saved_ me?"

"Pardon?"

"Force me to join Blackwatch. A tool at your disposal. Your very own human weapon—well, not human anymore, am I?"

He laughed.

"You _are_ human. Your support systems are just augmentations. You are the same person that you always were."

"What do you know about who I was?"

His anger was palpable, filling the room. Angela was not afraid. He had not attacked her, had not made a threat against her, since the first day he'd awoken and held the scalpel to her throat. His rage sat heavy on her shoulders like a leaden blanket, but she was not afraid.

"Genji," she began. He looked away. She took a step closer. "Genji, please believe me. I never wanted to hurt you. I didn't want to use you. I found you that night because of Ryūjin, and I did everything I could to save you because—because I'm a doctor. I couldn't leave you there."

 _Liar,_ a smoky voice intoned at the back of her mind. She tried to ignore it.

"If everything had gone well, we wouldn't have had to change your body. I didn't want to do it. There was no other choice left."

"You could have let me die," he said. His voice, even with its artificial quality, sounded flat.

"That was never an option."

He shook his head, still refusing to meet her eyes.

"I have Ryūjin to blame, anyway. He kept me alive. He wouldn't let my heart stop. He never bothered asking either. He told me it was his body too. Him and the clan and _Hanzo_ and _you—_ guess I'll never have a say in my own life."

Angela did not know what to say. She kept hovering by the doorway. Even if she had words, she wasn't sure she would be able to get them around the lump in her throat. How was she to react when he was all but telling her she shouldn't have saved his life?

Genji did not ask her to go. He sat in place, head bowed, staring down at the body that was alien to him. The seconds ticked slowly by. Angela had other patients, other appointments, but this was all that mattered.

"When he talks to you," she finally asked, her voice a bit husky but otherwise unbroken, "does it hurt? Make you feel ill?"

Genji looked up.

"Not anymore. The first time I met him, yeah. I thought I was going to die. I don't know if he's gotten quieter or if I've just gotten used to it. He did it to you?"

"Yes." Angela remembered being bent double on the riverbank, seeing through eyes not her own. The memory was strong enough to elicit a visceral reaction. Even here and now, without Ryūjin's unearthly roar echoing in her ears, she felt a little bit nauseous. "I don't know how you could stand hearing it all the time."

"Not all the time. He doesn't like to talk."

"He only said one word to me," Angela said. She could hear the three syllables ringing in her head. " _Nasake._ "

Genji raised his eyebrows.

"Mercy."

* * *

_Dear Captain Amari,_

_I saved him. I wouldn't have been able to do it if I had listened to you. You were wrong. Right about so many other things, maybe everything else, but this time you were wrong._

* * *

The little gathering outside on the launch pad on the morning of Fareeha Amari's departure was a subdued one. The only person smiling was the one they were gathered to send off. Fareeha looked positively radiant in the light of the rising sun, with a bag slung over her back and another one in hand. Confidence flowed through the set of her shoulders and the upturn of her lips. She was the picture of fortitude.

Angela could not begrudge Fareeha her happiness. She was on her way, after all, to begin her life for real. She would fly from Zürich back to Cairo, to her father and to her future. She had every reason to smile. They could not begrudge her that, even if the rest of them were notably less excited about the occasion.

Winston was frowning and staring down at his feet. Commander Reyes was scowling even more than usual, and Strike Commander Morrison at his side looked like he had a foul taste in his mouth. Jesse McCree was squinting and blinking perhaps more than the sunrise could account for, and Reinhardt was openly sniffling. Torbjörn was patting his old friend's knee and muttering under his breath.

Angela was staring into the sun, trying to lose herself in it.

What would Ana say if she saw them all there? What would she say if she knew that they were letting her daughter go, wishing her a fond farewell as if they didn't know she was ignoring Ana's express wishes? Fareeha would go home and join the army, and perhaps they would never see her again, and they would all be as culpable for that as if they had pulled the trigger themselves.

_If you let Fareeha do this, it will destroy her._

Angela's tears, when they came, had nothing to do with the young woman standing before them. They had everything to do with the woman she was failing again.

"Hey, come on," Fareeha said, looking around at all of them. "Do you want to make me cry too?"

"We'll miss you." Reinhardt's voice cracked, and he was quick to hide his face in his handkerchief. Torbjörn rolled his eyes.

"It's not forever, Reinhardt." Fareeha walked over to pat his arm. When he lowered his hands, his face was red and damp. Fareeha wrapped her arms around him, and Reinhardt returned the gesture as more tears rolled down his cheeks.

"You'll call?" he said.

"Every week, if you want me to." Fareeha's voice was strained; Angela feared that if Reinhardt squeezed much tighter she would be going nowhere but the medbay.

" _Viel Glück, Liebchen._ " He let her go, reluctantly, and quickly brought up the handkerchief to wipe his face again.

"Torbjörn, take care," Fareeha said, shaking the hand of the smaller man next to Reinhardt.

"You too," he said gruffly. "Need anything built, you know where to find me. And look after yourself."

Jesse was next in line, and his eyes were definitely overly bright now. He hesitated before opening his arms, and Fareeha embraced him.

"Next time we can have a shooting contest. I'll give you a run for your money."

"Yeah, you wish," he snorted. "I'll beat you any day of the week."

"You'll eat those words!" she said, smile broader than ever.

"If she's half as good as her mother, you'll regret challenging her," Gabriel said. He stood beside Jesse, impassive, a statue, his face serious as he looked at Fareeha. She gazed evenly back, looking between him and Jack.

"Thank you, both of you. For everything. For letting me stay here. I won't forget it. Someday I'll be back."

"You can always visit," Jack said. His lips twitched upward, but the expression failed to resemble a smile. "You have a place here."

She shook her head. "I want to come back the right way."

The two of them hugged her. For the first time, wrapped securely in their arms, Fareeha's smile faltered. She squeezed her eyes closed, and when they opened they were bright and wet. It felt like a private moment, like witnessing it was an intrusion, but even for her discomfort Angela found herself unable to look away.

" _Te quiero_ ," Gabriel said. The words, unfamiliar to Angela, were muffled in Fareeha's shoulder. "Take care."

"You too," Fareeha said, pulling back. "Both of you. All of you."

It was Winston's turn. He looked even more uncomfortable now, his expression nothing short of miserable as he looked up at Fareeha and back down at his feet.

"Come on, big guy. It's not forever."

"I'll miss you," he said quietly.

"I'll miss you too. But if you want to talk about anything, tell me what's going on or talk about what you're working on, call me. Email me. I want to hear it."

"Will do." He shuffled his feet, looking unsure, and then spoke again. "You'll do awesome. I know you will."

"You will too."

They hugged, brief and gentle, and then it was Angela's turn.

Not for the first time, she felt out of place there. Who was she to Fareeha, compared to the others there? What had she done to earn her place in this farewell? A months-old favor? Much more pertinent seemed the relationship about which Fareeha had never known. Much more pertinent seemed Angela's failure to save her mother.

"Look after everybody, Angela."

Fareeha's face was so open, so bright. Angela did not deserve a smile like that.

"Are you sure you want to go?" She found her mouth forming and speaking the words, knowing she shouldn't but unable to stop herself. "Your mother—"

"Don't you start too," Fareeha said. "It's okay. This is my choice. Mom wanted what she wanted, and I respect that. But it's my life."

Angela swallowed hard, nodded, tried to blink away the tears.

They shook hands. Fareeha's skin lacked the calluses of her mother's. When she returned—if she returned—would her hands be weathered and scarred, used to gripping a weapon? Would she return with ghosts on her shoulders and just a half-smile left?

Was Ana right? Was she as good as dead, as good as broken already?

There was nothing more for it but to watch. And watch Angela did as Fareeha hoisted up her duffel bag again, as she gave them all a last wave and a broad grin, as she walked up the ramp and disappeared into the little plane. They all waved, nobody bothering any longer to hide their tears. The plane took off with a roar, bringing Fareeha Amari with it, and soon it was nothing more than a tiny black dot in the orange-splashed sky.

They stood there longer than necessary after she was gone. Nobody seemed to know what to say. Nobody wanted to be the first to speak, the first to leave.

Were the others thinking, as Angela was, about mourning the departure of two Amaris just a few short months apart?

Finally Jack clapped his hands.

"We all have things to do. Come on. Can't stand here all day."

There were nods and mumbles, and one by one they slowly turned and began walking back to the base, back to their lives, now devoid of one more person.

Angela and Winston remained. Angela wasn't sure she could move. She felt sick. It was stand there or return to the medbay. All that was waiting there for her was Genji and a number of inconsequential injuries. Back to work. Back to saving lives that didn't matter while she let the ones that did slip away.

"She'll be okay," Winston said.

Angela looked at him. For whose benefit was he saying that?

"Will she?"

"She's probably going to be safer than any of us. Er, any of you. I don't go in the field—well, you know what I mean."

"Ana—" Her voice broke. She shouldn't talk about it, probably, but what did it matter now that Ana was dead? She cleared her throat and tried again. "Ana said she wouldn't let her join the army no matter what. That it would destroy her. She didn't want it to happen to her. But we all just stood here and let it."

Winston was quiet. The two of them looked down at Zürich, a city waking up. The sunlight was reflected again and again in the glass of the buildings. It was bright enough to blind.

"Maybe it will," he said at last. "But bad things can happen anywhere. Even if she stayed, there's no guarantee she'd be safe. And she definitely wouldn't be happy."

"I miss her," Angela sniffled. Her vision was fragmenting, all spots of light and color. She felt so empty, cold even in the sun. Again she felt the desperate desire for Ana to materialize, for _someone, anyone_ to hold her and tell her the comforting lie that everything would be all right. She needed a savior. She needed a hero.

All she had was her own insubstantial self and a genetically-engineered gorilla.

"Doctor Ziegler."

There was a warm, large hand on her shoulder. She looked from it up into Winston's face. He blinked owlishly behind his glasses.

"You should probably get some breakfast," he said.

It felt so absurd that Angela wanted to laugh. Breakfast? What use was food supposed to be?

But her stomach _was_ empty, and the thought of getting something warm into her was a comforting one. She nodded and let Winston gently guide her away from the launch pad and back into the base. The silence of the early morning merged back into the soft chatter and the electrical hum of the place they both called home.

"Will you join me?" she asked.

"No, I already ate. Up early. Lots to do."

"What are you working on these days?" It had been a while since they had spoken; Genji had kept her so busy that all of Winston's past few checkups had been performed by other doctors. She felt guilty about that now.

They had reached the cafeteria doors.

"Actually, I've got a new project. It's still a pretty long shot, but if I can get this figured out I might have a solution to our ghost problem."

He tapped the side of his nose and then was loping off, leaving Angela frowning after him.

_Ghost problem?_

But she didn't want to call him back to explain himself, so there was nothing to do but turn and head into the cafeteria. By the time she was done with breakfast, Angela had written off Winston's comment as another of life's many mysteries and all but forgotten it.

* * *

_Ana,_

_I have never believed in heaven. When they told me my parents were with God I saw only what I remembered—them dead on the ground. So I don't believe you can see me now. You can't see me letting your daughter go. We are all failing you. Maybe everyone else is forgetting you. But not me. Never me._

* * *

Angela had visited London a handful of times before in her life, and on one occasion she had even stayed in the King's Row Meridian. It had been a lovely trip to a beautiful area of the city, but the battleground they were currently navigating bore only the most superficial of resemblances to the place she had seen then.

"Reinhardt, more slicers!"

"On it!"

The amount of bots they had already taken down was dizzying, and Null Sector's forces showed no signs of ebbing anytime soon. Even Angela had pulled out her pistol more times than she could count. Her legs were aching, her ears ringing. It was all she could do to listen to her comrades and to the voices over the communicator. Thoughts of the hostages, of Mondatta and the humans held in the Underground, were gone. There was no more glory to it, just the dull work of slowly pushing the payload a few more feet before the next round of reinforcements.

Reinhardt finished off the offending slicers with a swing of his hammer, and they were moving again. Each strike of Torbjörn's hammer against his turret pounded in Angela's ears. She allowed herself a few seconds to close her eyes and attempt to calm. The Valkyrie was equipped with biotic technology to enhance her own stamina and recovery, but there was only so much it could do when faced with the relentless siege of enemy fire they had seen that day.

"You all right, Doctor Ziegler?"

In a disorienting blink Tracer was _there_ , standing in front of Angela like she had been there the whole time. Unlike the rest of them, she looked as put-together as she had at mission start. The ability to slip through time undoubtedly helped with that.

Tracer. Lena Oxton. Overwatch's very own _ghost problem._ She had haunted the halls of her old base for months after the accident, blinking in and out of existence. Angela had never seen her, nor had any of her fellows, perhaps because they didn't frequent the same areas Ms. Oxton had. Even those who had seen her weren't convinced she was anything more than a figment of their imaginations.

But Winston had seen her for what she was, helped her, plucked her from the ravages of time. She stood in front of them now, as solid and real as any of the rest.

He had performed a true miracle, Angela thought. He had brought a woman back from the dead.

"I'm fine," she said, offering a weak smile. "And you? Nothing I need to treat?"

"I'm all set for now," Tracer said. "But if that changes, I'll—"

She was interrupted by the series of beeps that they all knew too well by now. In a flash she was gone again, and Angela activated her wings to join Reinhardt by the payload.

"Bastion, coming in from behind us!" Torbjörn called out. Sure enough, rumbling around the corner was one of those particularly nasty omnics they'd come to dread over the past few skirmishes. The tank-configured bastion's first blast was swallowed by Reinhardt's shield, and then the omnic was distracted when Tracer blinked around it, guns blazing.

A shrill sound like fingernails grating against metal had Angela turning and drawing her pistol again; a new pack of slicers was closing in on the payload from the other direction. With a few blasts from Torbjörn's scrap gun and her own haphazard fire, the little bots crumpled one after another while the _booms_ from the bastion's cannon sounded behind them.

"Deton— _agh_!"

Tracer's pained cry was barely audible over the din of gunfire, but Angela heard. That was what she had trained herself to listen for. In an instant she was turning, spreading her wings, propelled to the spot she had last seen Tracer before she took the bastion's attack.

Angela did not see the burst of blue light as time rewound around her fellow agent. She did not see Reinhardt finish off the bastion with a final swing of his hammer. She barely saw the detonator, glowing red-white and ready to blow.

She was between it and a stone wall. There was no chance to fly out, hardly even a chance to look around. There was a single instant of terror and adrenaline that seemed to last forever as she stood and stared at the omnic about to end her life.

Everything went white, and then everything went gold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

__

_—ump._

__

_th—_

__

_thump._

__

_th—_

__

_thump._

__

_th—_

"Angela!"

It did hurt.

She was aware of every last inch of her body. From her face to her toes there was a horrible prickling in her skin, the pins and needles of a region waking up from sleep. She twitched a finger, but that was too much, too much, nerves screaming in protest as if she had cut it open.

Her heartbeat was echoing in her ears like a gunshot. She was taking heaving breaths like there was no air, but there was air. There was air like there had never been before, like there was a surplus of oxygen entirely for her benefit. She breathed and breathed like she was surfacing from underwater.

Where was she? What was this? A dream?

Something touched her outstretched hand. The pins and needles dug in and she _screamed_ at the pain of it. The offending object was gone, but the agony persisted. She was aware of pressure all over her, of something digging into her back, of something touching every inch of her. Hurting her. It was too much. It was all too much. Her head was going to explode from the overload.

"She's alive—she yelled—oh, shite—do we call for evac? She's not moving—"

"Shut it, rookie! Angela, can you hear me? Come on, open your eyes."

Their voices. She knew those voices. They were louder than her heart and her lungs. Perhaps just because the sound of them ringing through her brain was enough to drown all the other pain out, she couldn't feel the tingling in her skin as acutely any longer.

"How is she?" A third voice. She knew that one too. Reinhardt. Reinhardt and Torbjörn and Tracer. Her coworkers. She had been with them in King's Row, and then—and then—

"Doesn't look too good. Just stay on the payload! You got Jack on the line, don't you?"

The pressure was easing. The thing touching her skin was soft. Her uniform. Beneath her back, hard. Stone?

The bastion. The detonator. She had been _about to die—_

The world was blinding when she opened her eyes. Too much light, too much color. She blinked, forced them to stay open, to take in everything. She was aware of the tears coursing down her cheeks. Slowly the world coalesced into a picture that made sense. She recognized the two faces over her. She recognized the alley, the buildings, the sky.

"Oh, thank God. Doctor Ziegler, I'm so sorry, I didn't see you—"

"Shut _up,_ rookie! Angela, are you all right? Looked like you took that blast head-on—"

She had. She had been pinned against the wall. Looking around now, she saw that the building had half-collapsed. She was lying on a pile of rubble. The wings of her suit were crumpled and broken beneath her. The blue cloth of her uniform was torn and singed. The Caduceus was nowhere to be seen.

She should have been dead in the explosion, should have been crushed by the falling stone. There was no reason for her to be alive. No reason at all, except—

"I'm..."

She didn't know what to say. The overwhelming sensations were receding into their proper places, and nothing hurt. The stone underneath her was still hard, still uncomfortable, but the slight pain of it digging into her was all that remained.

She lifted a shaking hand to her face. It looked the same. Would she be able to tell the difference? Would she be able to identify a hand that looked and felt identical but was not hers at all?

"How long was I out?"

"Detonator went off about five minutes ago," Tracer said. "We got the bots cleaned up and just pulled you out."

Her eyes were huge, her face contorted into a mask of worry. Torbjörn didn't look much better. Angela glanced over to the payload to see Reinhardt as well, his shield diligently held up.

Five minutes. Had she really been rebuilt in five minutes? Wasn't it more likely that she'd somehow weathered the blast, miraculously managed to pull through?

She had built it, had deployed it in Genji's case, but never could she have imagined something like this. She had not activated it, had merely brought it as a contingency plan.

What other explanation was there? Her suit was damaged, completely burned away in places, but her skin was whole and untouched. Nothing hurt. She felt better than she had before. The exhaustion was gone, the ache of her muscles.

"We'll call an evac," Torbjörn was saying. "Get the payload pulled, get you looked at—"

"No!"

It had been a risk to come in the first place. The British government had refused to allow them access. Even successful, an unauthorized mission would land Overwatch in hot water. And if they failed to save the hostages, succeeded only in damaging city property, the fallout would be much worse.

She was not injured. She was alive and breathing. They would not stop on her account.

"We need to keep going. We're so close—we can't let everyone down. I'm fine. Look."

She forced herself to stand. Her legs were wobbly at first, forced to adapt to her weight, but soon enough she had steadied.

"Angela, this is ridiculous. There's no way you didn't take damage."

"Then we'll have to finish as quickly as possible, won't we?" She stared back stubbornly into Torbjörn's frowning face until he reluctantly acquiesced with a sigh.

"We got your staff," Lena said, and with a blink of blue light she was indeed holding out the Caduceus. Angela accepted it and looked it up and down. It had not escaped unscathed, but when she activated it the golden light was steady.

"Let's go," she said.

* * *

_Dear Captain Amari,_

_I almost followed you, but I suppose not yet. Not yet. I'm still breathing._

* * *

The bullet scar on her shoulder. The pale line on her throat where Genji had dug in the scalpel. The patch of mottled skin on one knee from a nasty fall she'd had when she was ten.

Gone.

Exploring her naked body in front of the mirror was not a new venture for Angela, but her purpose in doing so was. Today her gaze was focused and businesslike. Her hands did not linger at her breasts or pet between her thighs. She simply turned this way and that, seeking to catalogue every last inch of her skin, find something that would tell her she was the same person she had been before she had flown to King's Row.

Instead she had discovered the opposite. Scars, stretch marks, the imperfections that a body acquired through mere existence—she could find none of them. She was a final product that had never been forced through intermediate stages. Created, fixed, pieced back together in an instant between death and life.

The data readouts on her suit—luckily they had survived the damage—told the same story. For approximately seventy-nine seconds her heart had stopped beating.

It was one thing to know what had happened, but another entirely to understand it, to force herself to believe it. She felt the same as she ever had. In hindsight the pains upon awaking made sense: not pain, not really, but the sensory overload of nerves feeling for the first time. A new body making sense of its world.

She stood in front of the mirror and took herself in. Angela Ziegler. She felt the same, but she was different. She looked for the scars again, for marks of the body she knew, and could not find them. She was the same person; she was not the same person.

She had saved her own life.

The confused wonderment morphed into senseless anger as she stood there. She glared at her reflection and imagined it was someone else. Someone who had mocked her ambition, accused her of selfishness and short-sightedness. She had saved Genji. She had saved herself.

Who was Ana Amari to accuse her of playing God? Where was Ana now? Angela had done what she had set out to do. She had saved lives. She would save more. The Fólkvangr had _worked,_ had outperformed her wildest expectations. Ana had doubted her, had never seen her, perhaps, as more than a lovestruck girl eager to spread her legs.

The Valkyrie needed to be fixed, rebuilt. It would be better this time, different as she was different. The blue was best left in the past. She remembered, with another stab of indignation, a conversation she and Ana had had in front of a mirror.

_Engel is a pet name, not a title._

If Ana thought she was guilty of thinking herself an angel, so be it. She would accept the indictment. She would embrace it. She would once again don the halo. A new suit painted itself in her mind, white and gold. Ana was gone, but she was still there. Ana could not protect everyone, but Angela could save them.

And she would.

The sound of a dragon crying for her help echoed in Angela's ears.

_Nasake nasake nasake nasake—_

Mercy. Mercy. Mercy.

_Mercy._

* * *

_Ana—_

_I am different from the person you knew. I am not the person you told me I was. I have a body now that you have never touched. I want you to see me now. I want you to come back and look at me. I want you to consecrate my skin. ~~I want to feel whole again.~~_

* * *

The incident at King's Row sparked off a series of furious UN hearings. The British government was indignant at the blatant disregard of their policies, and the Security Council was equally irate about Overwatch moving without explicit authorization to do so. On the other hand, the broader international community had a more favorable view of the mission, especially after Tekhartha Mondatta made a speech thanking Overwatch for saving the lives of his fellow hostages.

The four-man team was called in, alongside Jack, to testify, an experience Angela found uncomfortable. She stared around at a room full of people in suits and could not help but feel that they had no idea what it was actually like outside of their safe cocoon. Had any of them ever wielded a gun, slaved over an operating table, seen their comrades die in front of them? It seemed a cold and emotionless proceeding, people calmly passing judgment on things they could not comprehend.

If it wasn't for the presence of the others, Angela was sure it would have been even more unbearable. But having Reinhardt steady and unwavering, Lena optimistic and energetic, and Torbjörn candid and gruff as ever helped her through the hearings.

There was a lot of press, cameras and microphones in her face, questions coming from all sides. For the most part Angela ignored them, but they reminded her of a young woman she had met in a bar a few months ago. She wondered if Eva was watching, if she was pointing at the screen and telling her friends that Angela Ziegler was a screamer who liked having her hair pulled.

It made her a little bit sick to think about. So much for anonymous sex. What an idiot she was.

"I don't know how you do these all the time," she murmured to Jack as they were leaving.

He laughed a little. "You get used to it."

She did not say what she was thinking, which was that she hoped she never had the chance to know what that felt like.

Missions were suspended for two months following the hearings. Her teammates were all upset at the hiatus, particularly Reinhardt, who could be found protesting at any given time that there were people around the world who needed Overwatch's help.

"This oversight loses its meaning when it prevents us from doing our duty," he loudly proclaimed.

Angela didn't entirely disagree, but the suspension was much more welcome to her. It gave her the much-needed time to rebuild her suit and repair the Caduceus. The process was much quicker this time than the first, now that she had blueprints and previous experience under her belt.

The Valkyrie came to life again under her hands, no longer royal blue but white and golden. It was beautiful, so beautiful, and when she donned it for the first time and looked in the mirror she was satisfied with the person looking back at her.

Angela Ziegler, callsign Mercy, spread her wings once more.

Her comrades took the new name and suit in stride. Certainly it was easier to bark _Mercy_ than _Doctor Ziegler_ into a communicator. Only Torbjörn asked about the reason for the change, to which Angela simply shrugged and said she felt like something different.

She told nobody about the Fólkvangr. Nobody but she herself knew that in London, for a little more than a minute, she had been dead.

She had not forgotten the grim picture Ana had painted for her of a world where dictators and their armies were undying. If she told anyone, the secret would be out of her hands. She trusted the people with whom she worked, but accidents happened. A slip of the tongue would be enough.

Angela wished there was somebody she trusted enough to tell. Her words, her emotions, were slowly suffocating within her. Her thoughts spun in wild circles within her own head. All of it rotted together, never finding its way out of her mouth.

Since childhood she had clung to the idea that someday there would be somebody who understood her. Somebody who would know her words without having to hear them. Somebody to hold her and love her and be there for her. She had dreamed of the day that her words would not drown in her mind. She had dreamed of something filling the emptiness that had swallowed her since the day her parents had died.

It had not been Ana. What Ana had seen was not truth. She was not the person Ana had accused her of being. She was better than that—different from that.

But Angela was realizing now was that it had been a fanciful dream from the start. There was nobody else. There was only her, clad in white and gold, pulling herself up. When she looked in the mirror and saw Mercy looking back it was easy to pretend that that truth was something she could move past and not a bitter reality eating her from the inside out.

* * *

_Dear Ana,_

_The world moves on without you. I move, too, but I am carrying you with me._

* * *

Seven months after he first joined Blackwatch, Genji withdrew from the organization. On the day of his departure he sent Angela a text inviting her to meet him outside by the gates. She found him sitting on a bench with his single bag carelessly tossed on the ground. He gestured at the space next to him and she sat.

A little green head peeked out from around Genji's arm, looking up at Angela. An instant later Ryūjin was clambering into her lap and curling up there. He had no weight at all, but she could still feel the electricity of his scales even through her clothes. She rested a tentative hand on the dragon, and when he affectionately nudged his head against her she began to stroke his lime-green coils.

For a while neither of them spoke. It was enough to watch the gates open and close to allow the occasional vehicle in, to see agents walking past on their way in or out of town. Strike Commander Morrison's statue cast its shadow over them. A silent sentinel.

"I thought you might stay," she said eventually. "That you might end up enjoying it."

He looked at her. His visor was in place, so she couldn't read his face. There was only sleek silver-green metal. It had taken only a handful of months for him to agree to the complete cybernation of his body. Now he was uniform. A completed project. A work of art.

"The Shimada-gumi is crumbled. I worked with Blackwatch to achieve that, but I have no desire to stay here. Commander Reyes has given me free rein."

"You didn't like it? Helping people?"

"Angela—I did not like everything the clan did even when they called it family business. I do not like doing the same shit and calling it helping the world any more."

"—What?"

He shook his head.

"Eh, forget about it. You don't need to know. But no, I never fell in love with Blackwatch. Sorry if things did not work out how you wanted."

The accusation sat silent in the air between them. Angela did not bother to counter it. What was the use in saying she had not wanted to turn him into a human weapon when that had ended up being the result anyway?

"Where will you go?" she asked instead.

"I don't really know. Maybe Route Sixty-Six. McCree has told me stories. Not much point in going home, anyway. Any suggestions?"

"Iraq? Oasis is lovely. Oh, your thermoregulators might have trouble with the heat there—"

"I was joking. What do you care where I go? It's none of your business."

That stung. Angela's hand stilled, and Ryūjin made an indignant noise at the abrupt lack of petting.

"I care what happens to you."

He snorted.

"You care about your investment. Your tech. Not me."

"That is not—that is—"

She wanted to say it was not true. More than that, she needed to believe it was not true. But she didn't. She had saved him for entirely selfish reasons, had refused to give up simply to prove to herself that she could cheat death. She had done it all to drive the specter from her shoulders. Who was Genji Shimada? He was irrelevant to what had happened. Irrelevant to her aims.

Tiny needle-sharp teeth dug into her pointer finger. She yelped and hastily resumed stroking Ryūjin's scales once more. The dragon thrummed happily under her touch like a cat purring.

"Doctor Ziegler." He sighed. "I do not really blame you. And I—I wanted to say that I _am_ thankful. My time here has not been so horrible. I have taken out my anger for my brother on everyone here. I will apologize for that."

"You don't need to apologize," she said. "I can't imagine what it was like. Any of it. Hearing Ryūjin and finding you on that riverbank—I won't be forgetting that anytime soon. When I found you, I just wanted to do everything I could."

She could tell him the truth. She could tell him about a woman he would never meet. Did Jesse speak of Ana? Had Genji heard the stories?

"And I don't know how it was for you. I cannot hold your actions against you. You did what you knew how to do."

She nodded. He said nothing. He was looking at her like he was waiting for her to say something, but she had nothing to say. She merely stared back.

He stood.

"Well, this is it for me."

"Do you have a train? A flight?" She carefully picked up Ryūjin. He reluctantly went with her, squirming in her arms as she held him out to Genji. He accepted his dragon back, and in an instant Ryūjin had twined around him and disappeared once more.

"Train to Amsterdam. From there...we'll see."

"Take care," she said, and meant it. "You know how to keep up maintenance well enough, but call me if you have problems. I can travel to you, if it helps. I owe you that much."

"Thank you."

He picked up his bag, waited a few heartbeats more, and then turned and strode away. He raised a hand over his shoulder in farewell.

" _Jaa, sayōnara._ "

" _Sayōnara_ ," she echoed. She stood and watched as man and dragon disappeared out the gates. Then they closed again, leaving her sealed world all the smaller.

* * *

_Dear Captain Amari,_

_You said you felt old at fifty. I feel old now. The base is claustophobic. I am not sure what I'm doing anymore. When a body does not have enough food it breaks down its own muscles. It cannibalizes itself to keep going. I have swallowed everything I am. It is impossible to fill a black hole._

* * *

Mercy.

Saving the world.

A brief and stupid dream.

She had saved Genji Shimada. She had pulled him back from beyond the grave. He was nobody, a flirt from a family that had done far more harm than it had ever done good. And she had saved him. She had saved Overwatch's agents countless times, in the field, in transports back to base, in long and grueling hours in her operating room. And before that, before she had joined the organization, she had saved lives too.

She had saved herself.

But never anyone important. Never the ones that really mattered. She had lost her parents, lost Ana Amari, lost Fareeha when she let her go, lost Mei-Ling Zhou.

There was nothing anybody could have done about the storm. Certainly there was nothing she, sixteen thousand kilometers away, could have done. The enemy was not the omnics who had killed her parents, not Talon who had murdered Ana. It was just the cold might of nature. Angela's helpless and sorrowful fury was idiotic in the face of that. But how could she fail to be angry when the world Mei-Ling had fought to save had killed her?

She remembered when they got word of the storm. She remembered the hysterical argument she'd had with Strike Commander Morrison.

_"You have to send someone."_

_"Ziegler, are you listening to me? There's no transport that can get through that weather. I'm not wasting any pilot's life on an attempt that's doomed to fail."_

_"So we just have to stand by and watch them die?"_

_"As soon as we can we'll get relief down there. This isn't any easier for me, you know!"_

But after the storm had passed, there was nothing to be found. The base was battered and windswept. Snow had broken through windows and piled high in laboratories and sleeping quarters. There were no bodies; the team of scientists was nowhere to be found. The pilots had scoured the surrounding land for kilometers out but to no avail. Lena had been on the rescue team. Angela remembered the look on her face when she landed back in Zürich and pulled off her helmet. Her eyes had been red and her cheeks blotchy. She had silently shaken her head.

The scientists were presumed to have struck out on their own during the storm and ended up buried. Another person Angela cared about lost to her forever. Another death without a body. Nothing to hold onto. Nothing to say goodbye to.

Angela had become a doctor to help people. To save lives. Maybe Ana had been right when she accused her of selfishness. But whatever her motives, the end was the same. She had failed over and over again. The people she cared about, the ones who mattered, she could not help.

She thought of the smiling face that had comforted her when she was in Hanamura. She tried not to think of what it would be like, stranded at the end of the earth and seeing death come for her in all of its white fury.

Angela did her work as well as she had ever done. Mechanically she stitched people up, performed maintenance on cybernetic limbs, deployed with teams to the field. There was no more energy in it. No passion. Just wondering when Torbjörn or Reinhardt would fall, when they'd receive news that Fareeha had followed her mother to the grave.

When Angela heard of McCree's desertion, it was hardly a surprise. It was just another symptom, another signpost in the road as Overwatch slouched toward disaster.

They could all feel it coming. King's Row had perhaps marked the beginning of the end. England's government was not the only one appalled by the idea of an organization that meted out justice as it saw fit, regardless of UN restrictions.

"We saved lives. We saved the hostages," Angela said, in one of those afternoons in Torbjörn's workshop that were becoming rarer and rarer. Both of them were spending more time working; even when they found time to spend together, they had little to say.

"Sure we did," the engineer said. "But that's not what ends up mattering, is it?"

* * *

_Dear Captain Amari,_

_I used my pistol in London. I think it was because they were omnics. What does that make me? Would you have been proud of me for that? I'm still an awful shot. I don't have anybody to give me pointers. McCree is gone too. The base feels smaller. I miss Lozärn._

_Thinking of quitting. What would I do if I didn't have Overwatch? How can I decide where to begin in a world where so many people need help?_

_If I go, I will carry you with me. I carry you everywhere—_

* * *

"Gibraltar?"

"Gibraltar," he answered, grim and steady. Angela was not sure of the last time she'd seen his face devoid of a frown, to say nothing of a smile. It was difficult to reconcile the scowling commander before her with the man who had planned their Halloween parties.

There were curls slipping onto his forehead from under his hat. They shone silvery-white in the lurid lights of the medbay. No patients staying the night to witness the meeting; just her and Blackwatch's head.

"Why?"

He blinked and waited a good five seconds before responding. She got the distinct sense that he was giving her a chance to take the question back. Maybe he wasn't used to his troops asking for reasons, but she wasn't Blackwatch and this wasn't the field.

"Security Council's enforcing new sanctions," he said at last. "They don't want a large standing force at any one base."

"But—surely you can relocate the technological sector, or weapons development, or—I should be here. I should be as close as possible."

"You're too important to get shipped off, is that what you're saying?"

There was no smile to lighten the words. No raised eyebrow to suggest it was a joke. Just the weight of the accusation.

Angela refused to play.

"I am just suggesting," she said, crisp, professional, "that myself and the medical team should remain focused at headquarters to maximize effectiveness."

"Decisions are final, Ziegler. You want to ask Jack, he'll tell you the same. Don't worry; we'll get you where you have to be."

She had been to Watchpoint: Gibraltar a handful of times before, usually en route to missions. Certainly the base up there had a glorious view of the strait. But the medical wing was comparatively tiny and all her work was here. She was already envisioning the logistical nightmare of relocating.

Perhaps it would be good, she tried to convince herself. A change of scenery. The sun and the sea. But it was a half-hearted lie. The problem lay within her, not in her surroundings.

"All right," she said, supposing there was nothing to do but agree. "Thank you for letting me know."

He nodded, but he didn't leave. Angela stood still and uncomfortable, waiting for him to say something or excuse himself.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"What?"

"Things going fine? Getting enough sleep? Not overworking yourself?"

Nobody had been asking her questions like that lately. She had hardly even bothered to ask them of herself. Hearing them at all was jarring, but that they were coming from him was even odder.

"I am all right," she said cautiously.

He nodded again. His eyes kept scanning the room as if he was casing it, expecting an assailant to jump out from behind one of the empty beds.

"Ana would be proud of you," he said abruptly.

It felt like a punch to the gut. She needed to respond, but she could only stare blankly at him and wonder why he would say such a thing. How much did he know? Had Ana told him? Had he seen? Surely it was not common knowledge. She wanted to ask all of those questions, but she would not condemn herself. She just kept staring, a deer in the headlights.

"You're doing good work, I mean," he added, when it became clear that she was not capable of answering intelligently. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. "Saving Shimada and all that—I owe you. We wouldn't have been able to take them down as easily without his help."

She found her voice. "I didn't save him because of that."

He sighed. "I'm not saying you did. I'm just thanking you because it helped."

"Well—I'm glad," she said, though gladness was far from one of the many emotions spinning through her in that moment. "Have you gotten any word from McCree?"

Immediately she regretted asking as his brows furrowed together, shifting his expression from serious to angry.

"No. Good riddance. He showed his loyalty when he ran. I don't need a deserting ingrate on my team."

She did not know what to say. She wanted to defend McCree— _he was a good agent, he was a good shot, he fought beside you for years—_ but she did not want to escalate. What did she know, anyway, about what had happened between them? She was an outsider. She knew people's bodies; their minds remained a mystery.

"Well, that's that," he said, saving her from having to think of a response. "You leave next week."

"All right. Thank you for letting me know," she said.

He took a few steps in the direction of the door and then paused, looking over his shoulder to address her again.

"It won't be too long, Ziegler."

"Pardon?"

"This'll be over soon," he said. Then, for the first time during that conversation, for the first time in what seemed like forever, he smiled.

* * *

_Ana—_

_—I'm sorry._

* * *

Red fire and black smoke. A statue crumbling. Glass and metal fused together in the rubble. A burned-out shell in the side of the mountain.

Over and over again.

The world stood still. The news outlets played nothing else. Online, too, every headline a variation on the same. She watched every video, read every article. She forced herself to live it again and again in some desperate attempt to punish herself. She had no way of knowing that her presence could have changed anything, but she knew for certain that her absence would leave a guilty mark for the rest of her life.

Jack. Gabe. Their names and histories echoed again and again by a hundred different newscasters. Strike Commander Morrison. His brother-in-arms and close _friend—_ Ana snorted at the word—Gabriel Reyes. Pictures of them. Footage, too. Jack addressing the UN. The interviews post-Crisis. She saw herself in many of the stories too. Ana Amari, announced dead in absentia after a clash with terrorist group Talon.

In the days after the explosion, Ana wished her death had not been a fabrication. To be dead already or to die in the explosion with her brothers-in-arms. But sitting far away, anonymous and watching safely on a screen, was the worst kind of torture. She had failed, again, to protect the people she loved.

Her little motel room in Caracas became a prison. Her steadfast resolution to give up alcohol in the years after her disappearance crumbled. She did not pray. She did not sleep. She watched screens and drank and wished it was her instead of them. She did not belong where she was. She did not deserve to live while they were dead and gone.

Worse than the news were the speculations, the thinkpieces. A rivalry, they said. Jealousy. Internal conflict. It had been an inside job. Reyes had never gotten over being passed up for the promotion, and years and years later his anger had boiled over.

Ana could hardly stomach them. Each fresh condemnation of Gabriel's character was a fresh wound on her scarred heart. They did not know him. That had not been who he was. That could not have been what happened.

One blog post, ludicrous enough to make her actually laugh, suggested the explosion was a stage for Overwatch's heads to escape the public eye and retire in peace, joining their comrade Amari who had faked her own death months earlier.

"Almost," she chuckled down at her tablet's screen. "Almost."

She needed to find her own answers. To dig through the rubble with her own two hands. She would find justice for Jack and Gabriel. She owed them that. Her investigation into Talon could wait; it had produced hardly any fruit anyway.

She left the motel and Caracas behind. With her eyepatch firmly in place and her tattoo hidden under makeup she rode the train south toward Brazil. She'd need to get her hands on some new identification if she wanted to fly.

She was still en route to Rio when the hearings aired. In a train car, surrounded by strangers, Ana watched as those she had left behind testified in front of the UN. Every face and every word was a fresh blow. She swayed with the motion of the train and felt ill, disoriented. She needed a small dark room again. She needed somewhere to fall apart. It was very difficult to stare down at the screen of her phone and pretend that her interest was merely that of a world citizen watching the news.

Reinhardt. Oh, Reinhardt. He looked lost and confused. His team, his friends, his _family_ were gone. He did not know what had happened, he said. There had been friction, but nothing that would impel this.

"They were good men," he concluded, booming, staring desperately around the room as if hoping for some semblance of sanity to appear. "They did the world an immeasurable service, and that is how they should be remembered."

Torbjörn was angry, scowling, barking short answers to every question that was asked. No, he had no reason to believe that Gabriel had been working to undermine the organization from the inside. No, he had no answers (yet) as to the cause of the explosion. And no, he knew nothing about Jack accepting extralegal bribes—what kind of a question was that, anyway?

Ana knew it was coming, had known from the first clip, but no amount of knowing could have prepared her for seeing Angela's face there on her screen.

She looked cold. Hard. She stared straight ahead and answered what was asked of her in a clipped voice. She was hardly recognizable. This was not the same young woman who had begged and panted and writhed for Ana. This was not even the physician who had sewn them all up time and time again. She was someone else now. Older.

Her blue eyes pierced through the screen as if she knew Ana was on the other side. Her gaze felt accusatory, but that was just the guilt in Ana's own mind, wasn't it?

_You cannot save everyone._

Her own words echoed in her ears. Why bother saying it? Why give Angela such a lesson when she was bound to have learned it on her own in time? She knew the truth now, with two of her commanders in the rubble and a third long gone. It all came to the same thing in the end. Would it have been so bad to let her little fantasies continue just a little longer? Ana could have disappeared on her transport with a kiss lingering on her lips rather than salt water.

 _No time to be lonely,_ she told herself, tightening her hands in her lap and staring out the window. She continued to listen as Angela went on to recommend the dissolution of the organization to which they had both devoted so much of their lives.

Ana got off the train in Rio and disappeared into the anonymity of the vast city. She could not mourn forever. She had relinquished her right to that when she had left Overwatch behind. All she could do now was focus on the task before her. Ana Amari was dead. She was nobody at all now. A nameless woman on her way to pick up the pieces of the life she'd abandoned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With regards to Ryūjin's name, Ryūjin is the name of the dragon-god of the sea in Japanese mythology. The first emperor of Japan was said to be descended from this Ryūjin, and thus the imperial dynasty of Japan were all descendants of this dragon-god. Also, as we all know, when Genji ults he says 竜神の剣を喰らえ (Ryūjin no ken wo kurae). The friendly-ult line is "the dragon becomes me," but the translation of what he says is more or less "Eat the sword of Ryūjin." So whether he's invoking specifically Ryūjin of mythology or just a dragon-god more generally, I felt like it was a suitable name.
> 
> On the same topic of names, Fólkvangr is, in Norse mythology, the name of the field ruled over by the goddess Freyja. At the end of each battle, Freyja and Odin would each take half of the fallen warriors to their respective realms, with Freyja getting first pick. So Fólkvangr is more or less analogous to Valhalla, Odin's hall. I debated with using Valhalla, especially given the more direct tie-in to Mercy's Sigrún and Valkyrie skins, but ultimately I went with Fólkvangr because I thought Angela might be more drawn to the association with Freyja; apart from being a woman, while Freyja is definitely also a goddess of battle, her associations are less battle-centered than Odin's. So. Yeah.


	5. Azalea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a love enduring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are. I certainly hope the finale lives up to the rest of the fic. It's quite long, hitting about 20k again. I would like to thank everybody who has read this far, who has commented and left kudos. I appreciate it, and writing wouldn't be the same without all of you!
> 
> This is the longest complete fic I've ever written, clocking in at just about 85,000 words. I hope you have all enjoyed these eighty-five thousand words of smut and angst. I certainly have.
> 
> Thank you all again, and I hope you like this final installment!

She was visiting Lozärn for the first time in years when the call came through. The serendipity of that was eerie. She might have been a teenager again, still in school, wooed by a world-famous organization. Perhaps Jack Morrison would arrive on a transport and escort her off to Zürich for a tour while stars gleamed in her eyes.

She forced the nostalgia down. There was nothing good to remember. Overwatch was not her life any longer.

She told herself that as she stared out at the lake. She came to a stop and found a bench. She stared at the screen of her phone as it proudly displayed Overwatch's emblem.

She didn't really wonder who it was; the answer there was obvious. In the organization's dissolution, they had all fought for Winston to be allowed to keep up residence at Gibraltar. There was nowhere else, really, for him to go. And now, finally, his surroundings had swayed him to recklessness.

She should not answer. Legally she should ignore the call and immediately report her suspicions of a violation of PETRAS.

But she had not heard from or seen Winston since after it had all happened. She should at least tell him that this, whatever it was, was a bad idea with her own voice.

Angela sighed and accepted the call. She gazed across the lake. The golden lights from the city gleamed in the water's reflection like thousands of floating stars. She had missed this sight. Zürich and all the places since had not been the same.

"Good evening, Doctor Ziegler."

It was not Winston who spoke into her ear, but a smooth, computerized voice. Metis? She sounded a little different from how Angela remembered, but perhaps that was just the distortion of time and memory.

"Good evening," she responded. "What is—?"

"Angela!" A different voice broke in, more exuberant. That was unmistakably Winston. Angela couldn't help but smile a little bit at the familiar tone.

"Winston. It's been a while."

Her own fault. She could have visited him. She could have visited any number of her former comrades. The choice to cut off contact had been entirely her own, the foolish ambition of wiping away a whole swathe of her life.

"It has! You're doing well?"

"I am," she said. She herself couldn't have said how truthful it was. By the standards of the past few years, she was doing well. By her own standards, quite well. But to an external observer, well...she did not know anymore.

"You're back in Switzerland?"

"I am," she repeated. "Just a short visit."

"That's, uh, good." There was the sound of rustling papers from his end. She imagined him nervously shuffling them. Where was he? In the old laboratory? Looking over the sea? In the little common room where they had all first learned about the explosion?

"I know you didn't call to ask about how I am," she said, trying not to sound short.

"Well, no." He seemed relieved; of course, he had never been one for small talk. "You can probably guess what this is about, but before we get into it, I should introduce you—"

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," the electronic voice broke in. "I have thoroughly studied your publications and am humbled to speak to you at last, Agent Mercy."

The old name sent a pang through Angela. That was not who she was. In that moment she did not even feel like a doctor. She was simply a woman sitting on a bench and staring out at Lake Lozärn as her past called her back into it.

"Winston—weren't Metis's drives confiscated by the UN?"

Information kept for the investigation. Encryption they'd never break through. Years' worth of mission reports and emails and personal messages. A whole world, a world they'd all shared together, in the hands of a distant group of suited elites. Angela had not liked that. None of them had.

"Yes, they were," he said. Shifty. Caught between pride and embarrassment. "But they couldn't confiscate what they didn't know about. And this isn't Metis. Angela, meet Athena. Athena, Angela."

"As I said before, charmed," Athena said. The Overwatch logo on Angela's screen pulsed gently.

"Likewise," Angela said. "So you are—"

"I am an artificial intelligence modeled after my predecessor's core functions, with additional flexibility in processing and some unique applications," Athena said. Her voice was smoother, cleaner, than Metis's had been, the prosody almost humanoid. Angela could imagine a woman, a goddess, smiling. "Perhaps the most useful comparison would be to describe myself as Metis's daughter."

"Is this what you've been working on these past years?" Angela asked of Winston. Somehow the idea of him cooped up in Gibraltar was all the more disturbing now that she imagined this. A loneliness that had driven him to rebuild the AI they'd left behind.

"Oh, no. She was pretty far along by the time—well, by the time we dissolved. The base out here still has a lot of old equipment. I don't think the UN knows what to do with it all. We've got servers, got her wired in throughout the base—"

He spoke fondly, eagerly.

"I hope to serve the new Overwatch as my mother served the old," Athena concurred.

Hearing filial words from the electronic voice of an artificial intelligence was jarring. Mother. Daughter. _Public class Athena extends Metis._ Electricity and wiring and code instead of blood and genetics. Did Athena understand what those words meant? Did she know what a mother was?

Did Angela?

"The new Overwatch," she echoed. "So you're issuing recall."

"We are," Winston said. "And we could really use you. You were the best surgeon, head of research, I've already electrocuted myself twice in the past few months—"

The flattery was nice, but it made no difference.

"Winston," Angela interrupted gently, "this is a bad idea."

He abandoned the sweet-talking and attempted a new tactic at once.

"Angela, the world needs us. You must see it. Look at Russia, look at Australia. The UN's not doing anything. We can do something. We have to do something. We can help people!"

"Can we? Were we helping people before? We were shooting in the dark. It won't be different this time. More casualties, the same mistakes—"

"No! We can learn from them! I know you don't like combat for a solution, and we can discuss that! But somebody needs to do something, and we can be that somebody. The world needs help!"

"I am helping people," she said flatly, finally. "The right way. The best way. Overwatch is dead. It does not need to rise from its ashes."

Winston puffed out a long, disappointed sigh.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"I know I won't convince you not to do this," she said. "But please, think about it. About everything you do. I'll be thinking of you."

"There'll be a place open for you," Winston promised. "Change your mind any time. Try it just for a little while."

"Thank you," she said, certain it was an offer she would never accept. "Who else have you called? Who responded?"

"I'm sorry, Doctor Ziegler," Athena cut smoothly in, "but as you have rejected our proposition, that is classified information."

"Er, what she said," Winston said. "Sorry. Gotta be careful."

"I understand. Don't worry—the UN won't hear about you from me."

"Oh, and Angela, while I have you—" His tone changed. He sounded serious, intense. "Talon's hunting ex-Overwatch agents. You're pretty high-profile, and I know you can look out for yourself, but—just be careful, okay? They're working with this vigilante—look, even if you don't want to join us, the instant you find yourself in trouble, call. We'll help."

The warning left a sour taste in the back of her throat. Talon on the rise. She had seen more news about that herself lately. The organization, it seemed, had abandoned the silent and ruthless efficiency with which it had operated before. Now, in a world without Overwatch, it seemed to think it could act with impunity.

"The altercation in Numbani—"

"Yeah, that was them. Mondatta too. They're getting cocky."

"I'll keep an eye out," Angela said.

"And _call._ I mean it."

She smiled. His concern was touching. "Thank you, Winston. It was good to hear from you again. I don't agree with what you're doing, but I wish you the best. Be careful."

"You too, Angela," he said. There was a pause. Angela could not bring herself to hang up, until at last Winston did it for her. "Good night."

"Good night," she said.

"It was good to meet you, Doctor Ziegler," Athena said. "I wish you all the best."

"The same to you," Angela said, and then hung up.

She sat on the bench for a long time after that, not wanting to return to her hotel just yet. The evening seemed quiet and empty now without two voices speaking into her ears. Overwatch forming again. The past repeating itself. But this time she was not swayed by wonder and awe. She felt only a dull, worried ache.

It was the right choice. It had to be the right choice. She would not repeat history. The organization's second incarnation would meet as inelegant an end as its first. Had they learned nothing from their commanders, from the explosion? Would she hear on the news about more comrades lost, to internal strife or to struggles with Talon?

But in the silence and loneliness of the evening Winston's words rang in her ears. She thought of what it would be like to hear all of those familiar voices again, to see faces she hadn't seen in years. Reinhardt, he'd answer the recall eagerly. Would Torbjörn? Tracer, of course, she and Winston were joined at the hip—

Angela was making the right decision. But on that bench, staring out at a star-speckled lake, she wanted nothing more than to make a mistake. To run back to Gibraltar and repeat the past. To hear the laughter of comrades, friends, instead of just her own foolish thoughts filling her mind.

* * *

He couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. His sister had dragged him to their temporary hospital and begged them, with voice and eyes and face, to do whatever they could.

Angela was alone in the tent. The others had left her alone. Someone would go tell his sister that they had done all they could and that it wasn't enough. That her brother was dead; that Angela had let him die.

She felt unsteady on her feet. Sick. Angry. Exhausted. Sensations that had become familiar to her. Another tally on an invisible list. Another ghost on her shoulders. Another failure. Someone she could have saved, should have saved, and had not.

She pulled off her gloves. The white latex was almost completely obscured by red. Blood on her hands. The blood of the boy who lay, still and covered, on her operating table.

There was a small sink and mirror. She washed her hands and breathed in and out. The smell of the tent was overwhelming. She'd spent hours in here, spent longer in it before, but now it was too small, too suffocating. Death in the perfunctory and sterile scent. Death on her hands and in her face.

The same face staring back at her in the little mirror. She stared at herself. Her reflection, of course it was her reflection. But somehow it was not quite what she was expecting to see. The image of herself in her mind was not the same person in the glass.

Her eyes looked dazed and unfocused. Her brow was furrowed. There were dark bags under her eyes. But it was the same face she wore five, ten years ago. Aside from the temporary creases of her distress, she bore no wrinkles. No signs of age. The rest of her body told the same story. She had not aged.

She was beginning to wonder if she ever would.

In that tent in the Australian Outback, alone but for the corpse of a boy she had failed to save, Angela stared at her reflection as if it had answers for her. She lifted one wet finger and traced a scythelike curve under her eye. For once she allowed herself to dredge up memories of a woman she had left behind, after all these years of trying to forget.

_What am I doing?_

What difference was she making? Was she saving lives? The people she had helped, all the patients who had lived and breathed under her care, faded away. There was only the boy on the table and all of her other failures.

She was remembering a different room, in which had lain the remains of two men whose names and legacies were known across the world. All that had survived of Jack Morrison were pieces—scraps of flesh and clothing linked to him only through DNA testing. Gabriel Reyes's body had been found, at least, injuries horrific and visage unrecognizable.

In that room, Angela had made an instantaneous decision. Her superior, recently deceased, and her with a technology nobody knew about.

The Fólkvangr had failed her. Maybe Reyes had been dead too long. Maybe the Soldier Enhancement Program had altered his processes too much. At first it had looked like it would work, the nanobes settling into his skin and learning his DNA. But then, silence. No movement at all. His body tucked into a coffin, into the earth, another _verdammt_ funeral.

The UN did not know of it, so they couldn't confiscate it. She had not tried it since. She had carried it with her, a secret and a burden, and had never taken it out again.

But now, with the dead teenager lying there, she thought of it once more. She thought of every life she had allowed to slip from her fingers.

Was what she was doing now helping anyone, or was she merely treating a symptom?

 _Ana,_ she asked herself, _what am I doing?_

Missions again. Clear objectives again. Battlefields and bullets and infamy again. The laughter of familiar voices.

Her cheeks were wet. She scrubbed at them impatiently with one damp hand.

Somewhere inside of her, that old familiar urge burned still. Some part of her longed to equip the Valkyrie suit and spread her wings once more. Some part of her still believed that it was possible for her to be a hero.

The rest of her knew now that it was an impossibility, an illogicality, a daydream. Ana had told her and she had learned firsthand that she could not save the world.

But hope never was about what was possible and logical. It was about what she felt and what she wanted. She wanted to look in the mirror again and feel good about the person she saw reflected back at her. She wanted to make all those old and foolish dreams come true.

_Agent Mercy._

Athena's voice from an evening a month ago rang in her mind. She could go back. She could don her suit again, resume work on a device that nobody but her knew about. She could research her own body and what had happened to it.

Her heart seemed to swell until it was stuck in her throat. She was going to do it, she knew. She was going to make a horrible decision. She would go back and repeat all her old mistakes again.

And it sounded wonderful.

* * *

Sydney to Madrid and a short hop to Almería, and then trains and buses along the coast. The Rock of Gibraltar stood as it had always stood. Angela took it in, breathed in the salty air and listened to the seagulls. Back again. Arriving at this place like it was the first time, just a handful of months before Overwatch crumbled.

Lena Oxton met her at the gates. Her smile was wider than Angela remembered, her cheeks perhaps a bit sunburned from the ocean sun. She caught Angela in a hug and laughed.

"You're here, you're here! Oh, I knew you'd show up! We can't do it without you, love, you know Winston's almost gotten himself blown up and he's patched himself up fine but he's a science-scientist, not a doctor—"

"I'm here," Angela said. She was smiling. She was beaming. There was a weight in her throat and her stomach, but when her eyes brimmed over it was for happiness.

The base was dusty and still had the vague feeling of being uninhabited. Winston had done the best he could to keep it up, but it was a task far beyond one occupant, even with assistance from an AI. Lena led Angela through the hangars and into the main complex, the place she remembered best. And it was there, just inside the doors, that she was reunited once more with the people she had tried and utterly failed to forget over the past few years.

" _Angela_!"

Reinhardt smothered her in a fierce hug that left her quite unable to breathe, only releasing her when Torbjörn elbowed him in the knee. Then the engineer was smiling up at her through his mustache, longer than she remembered, and Angela couldn't resist hugging him too.

"Oh, I missed you," she said, aware that she was tearing up again and not minding the least bit.

"Could've written," he said gruffly. "Could've called. Visited. 'I want to meet the angel-lady,' Stella kept saying, and I had to tell her that you'd disappeared right off the map."

Angela blushed. "I could have. I should have. I'm sorry; I would love to meet Stella."

She remembered pictures; Torbjörn's youngest daughter had just barely been born before the explosion. Torbjörn didn't talk much about his family, but when he did it was with a broad smile and plenty of photographs.

"Hopefully we'll all survive long enough for that," he said.

"Come now! We need a better attitude than that, my friend!" Reinhardt said.

Winston was there, quietly watching the proceedings, and he exchanged a smile with Angela when she met his eyes. And—

"Jesse McCree!" Angela stepped forward to greet the man. He looked older, wrinkles under his eyes and whiskers untamed, but his fashion sense had clearly not changed much in the time since she'd last see him. "How did you—where did you—"

"I got wind of the recall," he said, grinning crookedly. "Always got an ear to the ground. They were all pretty surprised when I turned up—"

"Oh, stuff it," Lena interrupted. "We tracked you down and you know it. You aren't half as sneaky as you think you are."

"Darlin', please," Jesse said, donning an expression of dramatic hurt as he gestured at his belt buckle. "Got a reputation to live up to here."

"I just—I didn't expect to see you again," Angela said. "Not after..."

She trailed off, unsure of what exactly to say. _How things ended? How you left? What happened with Gabriel?_

 _I don't need a deserting ingrate on my team,_ a voice from her memories rasped.

Jesse's smile flickered. The whole room seemed to tense. Something unspoken passed between all of them. An explosion. Their organization crumbled. Their commanders dead. And here they were again, with no idea what they were doing.

"Well, here I am," he said, bouncing back quickly. The rest of them followed suit; what they had all felt remained silent, a feeling and no more. A ghost they would not name.

A new voice floated around the corner, interrupting the moment. A voice Angela remembered, but not one she believed.

"Is she here yet? Sorry I'm late, I was just finishing up some—oh—"

A figure rounded the corner. Then the face, too, those bright eyes behind large glasses, the smile, the bun. When she saw Angela standing there, she smiled wider and hurried to the middle of the room.

"Doctor Ziegler!"

Angela could not speak. She was looking at a ghost. The person in front of her could not really be there. Mei-Ling Zhou had died in Antarctica years ago. She had died, and Angela had never called her back like she promised she would.

But there were warm hands enveloping her own, and a friendly voice in her ears. There were tears welling up and spilling over. She had cried so much in the past hour, but that didn't matter.

"Mei," she said, hugging her. Mei-Ling was warm and solid in her arms. She felt good there. Perhaps it was just good to have something to hold onto. " _Mei—_ "

"It's me," Mei-Ling giggled. She stepped back and adjusted her glasses. She was beaming. "I'm sorry to startle you like that. I was going to meet you with everyone else, but I lost track of time. I wasn't trying to make a grand entrance or anything!"

"But _how_?" Angela was almost afraid to look away from Mei-Ling, like letting her out of her sight for an instant would cause her to disappear once more, but she chanced a glance at the others. None of them looked surprised. Of course they didn't; Mei-Ling was at the base, had been at the base, they had known about her—

"We didn't know either," Winston said, when Angela's gaze landed on him. "Right after the recall I got a transmission from Ecopoint: Antarctica. I couldn't believe it either, but—"

"Nobody else knew about the cryostasis labs," Mei-Ling said. "It was just an experimental thing we had started looking into, and then when the storm came—"

"So the others? Your team?"

Mei-Ling's smile was gone then, taking the sparkle in her warm brown eyes with it. She shrugged and slowly shook her head.

"Nobody else woke up."

The reality of what Mei-Ling was saying slowly settled onto Angela. She had seen footage of the Ecopoint after the storm. A ruined wasteland. Snow and wind breaking glass, buffeting heavy equipment about as easily as if it weighed nothing at all. The team of scientists huddled between death in the might and fury of the weather and an uncertain hibernation from which they might never awaken.

"So...for the past...you were frozen since the storm?" Years, almost a decade, lost to the blink of icy sleep. Angela had worked with coma patients before, but this was altogether different.

"It was pretty disorienting," Mei-Ling said, offering a laugh. "It's still confusing. It was lucky that Winston and Athena answered when I called them. Then Lena came and flew me out."

"I felt horrible," Lena said. "I mean, the last time I just left you there! You were right under our feet and we didn't know!"

"How were you supposed to know? You shouldn't feel bad about that." Mei-Ling turned away from Angela at last.

The doctor was still standing there. Lena and Mei-Ling, ghosts pulled back from beyond the grave. She looked at both of them and could not help but think of the other people she had lost. Of one specific person she had lost, who had disappeared on a mission and never come back, even as a corpse.

It was dangerous to hope. She was setting herself up for despair by entertaining the possibility for even an instant.

But what a seductive thing to imagine. How could she fail to hope that there would be another voice she had expected never to hear again, that from around the corner would step a different woman, that Ana Amari would appear there and touch her, hold her, _say her name—_

She wanted to stop grieving, but she refused to let the memories go. So there she was again, desperately clinging to a dream from which she had already woken.

* * *

Fortunately for Angela, life at Watchpoint: Gibraltar proved to be hectic enough that there was little time for moping. It helped that she and Ana had never been stationed together at this base, and so it wasn't as if there were memories of her hanging in the air of every room and corridor.

The reminders of Ana came from her fellow recruits. From a melancholy post-dinner session of story-swapping, from Torbjörn's old photo albums, from a compliment from Jesse on the practice range. They all thought much and mentioned little of their previous commanders. Reyes's and Morrison's names were likely to be thrown about in a heated discussion of battle tactics. Jesse and Reinhardt frequently clashed over the permissibility of undercover missions; _there is no Blackwatch this time_ was a common refrain. There were meetings on the illegality of what they were doing and how to go about gaining international support, all of which seemed to run in circles and last hours despite never going anywhere.

It would have been positively intolerable, Angela thought, if it wasn't for the new recruits.

Lúcio Correia dos Santos arrived not long after Angela herself, and he seemed to bring with him an energy and enthusiasm the rest of them were hard-pressed to match. They had all heard of him, some more than others. Angela put her foot in her mouth the first evening by admitting she had never listened to any of his albums. At meetings he was an outspoken presence, balancing the old guard's uncertainty with his own steady optimism.

Hana Song followed soon, a match for Lúcio in vigor but with a sharp tongue all her own. Angela was more familiar with her than with the musician; she'd followed the MEKA program for a while, read a controversial paper on the psychological damage the pilots suffered. But if Hana Song had suffered battle scars, they were buried far below the surface. In training simulations, at mealtimes, in meetings, she was a spitfire offering skills belied by her age.

The omnic they all just called Bastion was an odd case. Angela could hardly believe her eyes the first time she walked into the common room and saw an old bastion unit sitting there, and she could believe her ears less when she heard that Torbjörn was the one who had brought it. Bastion could be found most of the time on the cliffs outside, staring out at the sea or rambling along the rocks and studying everything it came across. It never entered turret mode, never fired its gun. It simply watched the goings-on of the base with a tilted head and constant chirps and whirrs.

"Offered to retrofit it with some language processors," Torbjörn told her one evening while they stood on the balcony outside Winston's station and watched the omnic poke at some flowers growing at the edge of the cliff. "Blinked red at me, which seemed like a no."

Lúcio came zipping around the corner on his skates, whooping. Bastion turned its head to watch the musician as he ran circles around it.

"Athena says she's getting closer to interpreting," Angela said.

"For all we know, it's a Talon plant."

"You don't think so, though," Angela said, looking at her companion instead of the omnic. As he watched it, there was something gentle on his face, almost affectionate.

"Who cares what I think? Been wrong before and I'll be wrong again."

Bastion, legs and limbs tangled, fell over. Lúcio, though chortling, offered an apologetic hand to help pull it back up.

* * *

In mid-July, amidst discussions of appealing to potentially sympathetic governments for resources, Genji Shimada appeared on the recalled Overwatch's doorstep. He had been in contact with Winston since the recall went out, and though Angela knew he was coming she was wary of seeing him again. She doubted the intervening time had changed his opinion of her much, and she wasn't particularly looking forward to having hard truths thrown in her face once more. But she would be lying if she said she wasn't a bit excited to see a certain transparent green reptile accompanying the cyborg.

None of the agents were very prepared for the two companions Genji brought with him. Angela was part of the reception waiting for him. He was as recognizable as ever, as able to command attention now as he had back when his hair was green. His plating gleamed in the sunlight, smooth and well cared-for. At his right hovered an omnic bearing quite a resemblance to Tekhartha Mondatta, and at his left—

Angela did a double take. She _knew_ that face. She had seen it, years ago, in a nauseating onslaught of memory and emotion, on a riverbank where she found a man on the brink of death. She had not known whose face it was then, but after Genji had told her, she had known enough to surmise:

Hanzo Shimada. Heir to the Shimada-gumi after their father's passing. The stern (or anal, to use Genji's word) young man who had eviscerated his brother and left him to die.

He was a young man no longer. The person at Genji's side had silver in his hair and wrinkles on his hawklike brow. He held himself with confidence, but it was clear from the set of his body and the glancing of his eyes that he was not eager to be there.

Angela looked between Genji and Hanzo, wishing Genji wasn't wearing his visor so as to give her some inkling of what he was thinking, bringing along the brother who had all but murdered him.

"Angela," Genji said, stepping forward. His voice was light. There was no hint of the sarcasm that had always used to hang in his tone whenever he said her name. "Reinhardt. It is good to see both of you." He clasped his hands together and bowed from the waist, a warrior's salute. Then, fluid as water, he was leaping forward to meet Jesse. They embraced like brothers. Only when they had parted did Genji step back and indicate his companions.

"I am sorry to be so rude. This is Tekhartha Zenyatta, my master and good friend. And my brother, Hanzo Shimada. Hanzo, Zenyatta, these are Reinhardt Wilhelm, Jesse McCree, and Angela Ziegler, all agents and friends to whom I would and have trusted my life."

Angela would have been touched to be included in such a category, but her attention was more for Reinhardt at her side, who was leaning down and whispering in her ear. His whiskers tickled.

"Did he have more than one brother?"

Angela shook her head as slightly as she could manage, and Reinhardt straightened. She chanced a glance at Jesse, who was wearing a strained smile of the sort that was probably appropriate when introduced to someone who had attempted to kill his brother.

Hanzo was clearly not ignorant of their suspicion. He looked from one to the next. His eyes, bearing out from under those heavy brows, caught Angela's. His lip curled before he looked away.

Angela felt indignant. Who was _he_ to look at her like that?

Zenyatta, either oblivious to or uncaring of the tension, floated gently forward.

"Peace be upon you all," he said, waving a half-circle with one metal hand. "I am honored to meet the comrades of whom Genji has spoken so fondly."

"Tekhartha—so you are related to Mondatta?" Angela asked.

"My brother in the Iris," Zenyatta said solemnly, inclining his head. "There is not a day I do not mourn his passing. But I believe that my coming here may help lead to a world such as he envisioned."

Hanzo's expression was growing sourer and sourer. Angela half-expected him to bolt any second. It would hardly have been a loss.

Genji, perhaps noticing the same thing, began walking. "We should continue on-base. Where are the others? It will be nice to see Winston again..."

The introductions to the rest of the team went smoothly enough. Lena was thrilled to meet Zenyatta, instantly accosting him with questions about the Shambali. Genji and Hana immediately hit it off and were deep in a discussion of old arcade games when Angela noticed Hanzo had slipped away.

When the team had dispersed, she sidled up to Genji. Jesse stood nearby, probably interested in discussing the same thing. Zenyatta hovered placidly a few feet away.

Genji, probably anticipating what she was about to say, held up his hands.

"We have reconciled, Angela."

"Reconciled! The man tried to kill you, Genji. He cut you open. He set his dragons on you—you speak of reconciliation?"

Genji sounded almost amused, as if his electronic voice was concealing a laugh. It would have perturbed Angela more, but she had rarely heard him sound like that before. Perhaps that distant day in the arcade when he'd flirted and smiled so easily, but not since. Not since...

"My brother's life has crumbled," he said simply, looking between her and Jesse, who was quite obviously listening in. "He has abandoned the clan and sought to undermine their goals, as I have. As for our...history, it haunts him. I can feel the weight of it on his soul. That guilt has devoured him since the day we fought."

"Is guilt enough to absolve him of that?" she asked sharply.

Genji just looked at her. His faceplate gleamed in the light. No eyes, just metal. "I don't know. Is it, Angela?"

It seemed a rhetorical question, but she did not know the answer. Was he honestly asking her to weigh Hanzo's guilt against his crimes? She, who had seen firsthand and pieced together the scraps of a man left when he was done with his brother?

Jesse finally moved to join them, his spurs jingling.

"I gotta agree with the doc, Genji, this's some real sour shit—"

"Do you not agree that it is my own responsibility to judge my brother?"

"He killed you," Angela burst out. "You were so angry—have you forgotten that? Have you forgotten all of it? Bleeding to death on a riverbank, Ryūjin forcing your heart to beat?"

"I am a different man now," Genji said smoothly. He looked past them both to where Tekhartha Zenyatta still hovered, placidly observing the conversation. "I am _whole._ "

There were questions to be asked there, about why exactly Genji had shown up with a Nepalese monk in tow, but Angela refused to allow herself to be distracted.

"Does he intend to join us? To join the recalled Overwatch?"

"Hanzo's skills are not something to scoff at, Angela. He was the scion of the Shimada-gumi, trained to be its next head."

"I'd be happier with this all if he couldn't shoot straight," Jesse said. He was grimacing, looking less happy than Angela had seen him since recall. "Now I gotta watch my back and yours, Genji—"

"Hanzo is not a danger," Genji said. At last his new patience seemed to be wearing away, though for what Angela considered to be entirely the wrong reasons. "Not to myself and not to Overwatch. Perhaps to himself. I believe that this is a place for him. A place for him to help himself. I ask you at least to give him a chance."

Angela remained unconvinced, but her hand was out of cards. She looked helplessly at Jesse, who shrugged, looking equally unappeased.

"I trust you, Genji. But not him."

"Perhaps he will earn your trust." Genji bowed once more. "It has been wonderful seeing everyone once more, but I should get settled."

"Let me help get your stuff," Jesse said, and the two of them disappeared down the hall, leaving Angela alone with the quietly-hovering omnic. She turned to face him properly, wondering what he made of the conversation he had just witnessed.

"How long have you known Genji?"

"Several years." Zenyatta's voice was warm, calming. "When he found his way to us, he was lost in anger and hatred. It has been a wonder to see his path straighten. I am honored to call him a friend."

Angela wanted to ask about the history there, about how Genji had found his way into the laps of the Shambali, but she did not. If she wanted to know, she would ask Genji. She would not go behind his back unless it was absolutely necessary.

"You probably know him better than I do," she said.

"He has spoken of you, Doctor Ziegler. It is wonderful to meet you at last."

_Has he? What does he say? Does he hate me, resent me, hold all of it against me? How often has he spoken of me? What do you think of me?—_

"Thank you," she said.

* * *

Angela was crying.

There was sunlight pouring into her little room, forcing her to crank up the brightness on her room's screens as high as it could go, but it hardly seemed to matter now that there were tears obscuring her sight.

It was a very nice evening. Reinhardt and Jesse were teaming up to make dinner. Lúcio had arranged a game of street hockey out on the tarmac. If Angela was listening, she could have heard the clack of sticks and puck, the whoop of excited voices. She could have joined in, or at least watched. She could have helped with dinner. She could have checked on Winston's mission planning or been doing work of her own.

Instead she was sitting in her room, staring at a screen, and grinding against her palm.

She had ended up in the video archives for perfectly legitimate reasons, namely in search of a video diary she'd kept back when working on the Caduceus. She had found that, but then she had dug further, which had led her to folders and files she'd never seen before.

Ana was there on her screen. Laughing. Talking. Shooting. Some of the files were shaky, phone-camera views: a competition on the practice range in Zürich; the old trio celebrating Overwatch's first Halloween party. Others were recordings from Metis's lost drives: Ana reading out mission reports, a kitchen-camera as she made herself coffee in the evening; getting off a transport and walking along the launchpad. Or news broadcasts: interviews of the strike team before Overwatch's founding; a Spanish piece covering a mission and highlighting Ana's successes;

video stream from a funeral.

She hadn't been able to stop herself crying. How could she, as footage of a dead woman played before her? She was hearing a voice again that she hadn't heard in years. The pitch was a little wrong, disturbed by the static of recording, and there was no breath on the back of her neck, but there was a voice.

What was she doing? What was wrong with her? She was back in Overwatch again and doing the same things she always had. She was dreaming of Ana Amari and touching herself. The only difference was that this time the woman of whom she was fantasizing was dead, and she was old enough now to know better.

But the shame and the guilt, heavy and cloying as they were in her shoulders and at the back of her throat, were not enough to dissuade her. Her hand moved in the hot, sticky space between her thighs as tears rolled down her cheeks and the march of film played on.

"Ana Amari, second-in-command of international peacekeeping force Overwatch, reported dead in action—"

"Ana Amari, renowned sniper and veteran of the initial Overwatch strike team—"

"Ana Amari—"

"Ana—"

She drifted along with the newsreels and lost herself in old fantasies.

Side-by-side with her mentor on the practice range. Her shots as horrible as ever. Maybe she had never wanted to improve. Maybe she had wanted an excuse to allow the lessons to continue indefinitely.

Ana becoming impatient with her. Ana deciding on a different method to correct her errant aim. She would push her up against the back wall. Anyone entering the range could see them, see her, as Ana pushed up her shirt and pulled down her underwear.

The pistol would hurt, whipped across her tender skin. Ana's hand in her hair would keep her face pressed against the wall as she spanked her with her own gun. She would shudder and shake and cry out. She would promise to perform better, try harder, make Ana proud. She would be hot and wet and wound tight as a spring.

Eventually, with welts rising on her buttocks, the gunmetal would nudge between them to get at the place that really ached...

Guilt and lust. She ground against her palm and let her damp eyes close for a long few seconds before blearily opening them again. Ana on the screen. Ana shooting, Ana speaking—

She slid languidly into another fantasy, one from her time in Oasis. On the artificial beaches there, she had thought of Ana. She could never stop thinking of Ana. She had imagined them rolling in the sand together. Together in the sun and the heat. She had dreamed about it and sent pictures and burned there in a way that had nothing to do with the climate. She'd rubbed sunscreen on her back and imagined it was someone else's hands. She'd wanted Ana to see her in her bathing suit. She'd fantasized about it, gotten so lost in stupid daydreams there on the beach.

Scorn curdled in her stomach for the stupid girl she'd been back then. For the stupid woman she'd grown into. How could she still be so unable to move on? To focus on what was important?

Briefly she remembered a lazy evening in Oasis when she'd called Ana, showed off for her, relished every second. But she did not enjoy the memory in the same way she enjoyed the fantasy. The corridors of her past echoed with spiteful words that had never felt good at all.

_You are not so saintly. You are not so smart._

She had spent her whole life putting people back together. It was comical how easy it was for her to be shattered with only a handful of words.

Other imaginings. On her knees in Ana's office. Chained to her desk. Eating her out, dark curls brushing her lips and nose. She missed the taste of it, the smell of it, the wetness on her tongue. Memory and imagination were not enough, had never been enough—

"Agent Mercy, is there something with which I can assist you?"

The voice launched her violently back into reality. Her eyes snapped open and fixed again on the still-playing videos. Athena's icon had popped up in the corner of the screen, glowing faintly.

Her webcam was off and there were no security cameras in the dorms. Athena could not see her, did not know what she was doing. She could only see the files being accessed.

Angela told herself that, but it was not enough to dissipate the feeling of being caught red-handed. Like one of her fellow agents had just opened the door and come in to find her masturbating to images of their dead commander.

"Er—no—thank you, Athena," she said, clearing her throat and trying to sound neither breathless nor tearful.

"If you are looking for a specific file, my search algorithms can greatly expedite the process," the AI continued.

"I'm not. I'm just—just indulging my nostalgia." Angela forced herself to laugh. It came out horrid and choked.

Athena was silent for a few long moments before her icon finally pulsed once more. "I understand, Agent Mercy. I am sorry for your loss. I will leave you to it."

The little pop-up disappeared. The videos kept playing. Ana was on the screen, being interviewed, speaking Arabic. Angela couldn't understand a word. She just watched and watched and ached, fresh tears welling up and spilling over.

A few slow, guilty minutes later, her fingers began to rub gentle circles on her clit once more.

* * *

"Ziegler-san."

She jumped badly. The bottle of pills in her hand went flying, landing on the tile floor and scattering its contents every which way. She hardly noticed; she was trying to still her frantically pounding heart. It was past eleven at night; she was taking inventory of the medical supplies; and she hadn't heard her uninvited guest enter.

Hanzo Shimada's eyes were dark and cold as they observed her. She wanted to look away, but she matched his gaze. She would not give this man the satisfaction of knowing he intimidated her.

"Good evening," she said crisply, straightening. The pills strewn about the floor could wait until he was gone. She would not scramble, undignified, to pick them up while he stood there. "Has something happened?"

He looked fine. His kyudo-gi was covering his chest on both sides, his bow nowhere to be seen. That hardly seemed to matter; there could be any number of weapons hidden in his clothing. He could doubtless kill her without anything at all.

"No," he said brusquely, and nothing more.

He'd had his intake physical already. They hadn't been alone then; Genji had accompanied him and done most of the talking. Hanzo had demonstrated a truly remarkable level of fitness for a man of his age. Built to be a weapon, every facet of him lethal. He seemed an instrument trained to kill. She looked into his eyes and saw very little changed from the man she had seen in a vision the night she found Genji bleeding out.

Given the look on his face, she had little confidence that he would not attempt to do the same to her. A different base, a different brother. There would be no dragon coming to her aid this time.

"How can I help you?" she asked, after several very long seconds pulsed by.

"I should have come sooner. I have been intending to—speak with you."

To her surprise, he looked away first. He glanced around the medbay. Empty beds, her office tucked away, the open cabinets through which she'd been rummaging.

"You are the one who found him. Who...looked after him. Who turned him into a machine."

He said it as if he was reciting a grocery list.

Angela bristled at the accusation. It was not technically untrue. They were words she had heard leveled at herself before, mostly from Genji himself. She had rebuked herself for the same. But she _would not_ tolerate hearing it from this man.

"I will remind you, Mr. Shimada, who made that necessary in the first place."

He took a step forward. She tensed. But he simply hovered there before seeming to think better of it. He slid his foot back and resumed staring anywhere but at her.

"There is no need to remind me."

"You have made amends with—"

He cut her off with a curt jerk of his head and a motion from one of his hands, which were clenched into fists at his waist.

"I did not come to talk. I came—I came to say that for the past decade of my life, my brother has been gone. I have not passed a day without thinking of what I did. You will judge me however you wish, and I will do the same. But you have returned Genji to me."

He turned to face the door, metal calves tensed as if about to step. His next words were angry, spat off his tongue, but Angela could tell the venom in them was not directed at her.

"I thank you," he said.

Like he had come, silent and fast, he disappeared out her door again. It whispered closed behind him. Angela was left looking after him and wondering vaguely whether any of it had actually really happened.

She returned slowly to her task, scooping pills into one hand. She instructed Athena to lock the door, as if there was anybody else unexpected who would be bursting in.

His words sat sourly in the back of her mind. It had taken him an effort to utter them; that much was obvious. But far from appreciating them, all she could do was wonder whether she had actually done anything worth thanking.

* * *

Life at Watchpoint: Gibraltar settled into a comfortable rhythm. No longer was the base a dim half-abandoned warehouse. It came alive under the guidance of its various residents. With Athena and the help of cleaning robots, the old areas became usable again. An old tech lab was scraped out to serve as a common room, furnished with used couches and a television.

After their first mission, a late-September attempt to bust a trafficking ring wrangling up humans and omnics alike in Greece, Overwatch became a public name again. The mission was a resounding success; Greek and Spanish authorities called for a suspension or at least review of PETRAS. The old guard were excited but wary, remembering the red tape that would come with authorization should they be granted it. And if not...well, Angela had never been in a prison cell before. She was not looking to change that soon.

They were a tighter-knit group than the old Overwatch had been. They ate meals together, cooked for each other, passed evenings in the rec room watching movies or playing games or just existing in the same space, quiet but together—though the quiet rarely lasted more than a few minutes.

Angela drifted through her weeks feeling like she was living in an old dream. Someone would take her hand, drag her to movie night, force her to exist in the same plane as the rest of them, and she would smile and enjoy her time. Keeping busy was hardly an issue, whether it was McCree's arm needing a checkup or Reinhardt pulling some muscle on the practice range.

She spent time with Zenyatta, an unexpected companion. He had an uncanny knack for appearing whenever she was feeling particularly low. He was never invasive or presumptuous, frequently asking if she simply wanted to sit with him and Bastion and look over the sea.

She would have felt comfortable talking to him, she thought. But she never did.

Fareeha Amari appeared at their doors at the beginning of November, just after the UN formally issued new guidelines for the recalled Overwatch. They'd all known she was coming, though Angela had done her best to forget and succeeded too well.

Seeing Fareeha step out of the passenger drone and onto the landing pad felt like a punch to the stomach. The resemblance between mother and daughter had been strong when she'd left before; now it was uncanny. She wore a heavy canvas jacket stamped with Helix Security's name and logo. Her previous employer, she said, had been happy to let her abscond to Overwatch. It was good press, after all.

Angela tried to hold the ache in, to smile, to respond with appropriate enthusiasm when Fareeha greeted her and all of them. It should have been a happy occasion. Overwatch was gaining a new recruit. The daughter of Ana Amari had returned to them. But Angela, selfish and maudlin, could only fixate on what she had lost.

What came as a surprise to all of them, save Winston, was that Fareeha was not alone. Accompanying her was a young woman Angela had never seen before, regal, beautiful, with a stern face and a prosthetic left arm that gleamed a spotless white.

She was silent while Fareeha introduced her as Satya Vaswani, a defector from the Vishkar Corporation. Lúcio groused under his breath, expression much sourer than usual. Vaswani's eyes lingered on him, narrowed, disdainful.

Even when Winston moved forward to welcome her, followed soon by a buoyant Reinhardt, she said little and smiled less. Her eyes darted between all of them gathered there as if she expected someone to attack. Perhaps it wasn't such a far-fetched fear, given Lúcio's undisguised animosity. She calmed only when Fareeha moved to join her again, suggesting they both get settled.

"Talk about a face you never want to see again," the audio-medic and Angela's recent medical assistant said later, while they were both in the medbay, preparing for the newcomers' intake physicals. "I mean, I was really excited to meet Fareeha, because I've heard a lot about her from Jesse and Rein. And then she drags this Vishkar with her? What kind of—"

"Ex-Vishkar," Angela corrected quietly, automatically.

"Sure, she says that. Wouldn't they love to have a rat on the inside? You know they wouldn't be happy about what we're doing here, not when they could—and should—be a major target of ours."

"Whatever Fareeha said about her to Winston seems to have convinced him." Angela said. "We'll find out at the briefing soon enough."

"Better be convincing. I don't trust her. You wouldn't either, if you'd dealt with them firsthand, Doc." He shook his head, words seeming to fail him. "Vishkar's nasty. Underhanded. Hands in every pocket. We don't need them here too."

"If you dislike her so much, perhaps it would be best if I did her physical alone."

"Oh, no way. I'll be there."

"Then I would appreciate it if you could be pleasant—" Angela amended her word choice at the sour look on his face. "Er, not _overtly_ hostile."

"I'll try my best," he said, holding up a hand as if swearing an oath.

Fareeha's examination came first. She was jovial, energetic, laughing with Lúcio as she expressed a fervent admiration for his latest album. She was in the midst of tracing her career trajectory as she pulled off her jacket, leaving her in a tank top.

Her right arm gleamed. All metal and wire and electricity. A prosthetic.

Fareeha caught her gaze, grinned a little sheepishly.

"Second month with Helix. Got this too—" She lifted up her right pant leg. Another gleam of steel, another pang through Angela's heart. The sureness that she had, somehow, failed. Failed Fareeha and Ana and herself. "I thought about getting like Jesse has, you know, the skull? But it didn't seem very professional. Oh, come on, Angela, don't look like that. I'm alive, aren't I?"

She was. She was alive. There was no logical reason for Angela to feel as she did, as if her heart was being compressed very tightly. But she did feel that way, lost and helpless, her thoughts chasing each other in circles. She felt that way through the rest of Fareeha's physical, through Vaswani's, during which Lúcio kept his word and was coolly polite, into the afternoon and evening and the briefing on the former Vishkar agent's defection.

Winston showed them all a sampling of the payload of data on Vishkar's unethical business practices that Vaswani had brought with her. The revelation was met with impressed murmurs around the table. Even Lúcio surveyed Vaswani with something closer to respect than revulsion.

Angela was listening. The gravity of the situation was not lost on her. She heard and listened and spoke, asked questions, did her part.

But her gaze continued to slide back to Fareeha's profile, so like her mother's. The dull fog continued to surround her, a ghost that wouldn't let go.

* * *

The old Los Muertos hideouts in the southeastern corner of Dorado were sprawling, labyrinthine. There were no blueprints; Athena was sketching a map as the agents worked their way through the rooms and halls and warehouses. If it weren't for the AI's voice calm and informative in her ear, Angela might have thought she was running in circles. Even with Athena's reassurance, she wasn't entirely sure.

Reconnaissance, a fact-finding mission. Tracing the path of the mercenary known as Soldier: 76. It had been he who had ensured that these hideouts were no longer used, he who had rounded up and assisted local authorities in squashing the gang. He was a local hero, an urban legend. An enigma whose takedown of Los Muertos was tarred by his other activities: vehicle theft, assaulting police officers, even robbing banks. Though the public seemed to adore him, Mexico's authorities were less merciful. Thus, the mission.

Angela wouldn't have ordinarily been a pick for this kind of work, but she had requested to come. A distraction, she reasoned, would be good for her. But now, running through endless halls and clearing room after room according to Athena's patient instructions, she was worried she was little more than dead weight.

"McCree checking in," a voice rumbled over her comm. "Found some old weapons storage. Nothing undamaged—hell, I don't think some of these could even fire."

"You should bring one along," another voice—Fareeha—responded, light and teasing. "I'm sure it would serve you better than that peashooter."

"Hey, you'll be eatin' those words when _this peashooter_ saves your neck." McCree's voice was filled with exaggerated offense.

"Got some signs of combat down here, loves," Tracer chimed in. "I'm in 4-B. Doesn't look like anything recent, but these casings could've come from a pulse rifle. Athena, could you check—?"

The lights above Angela flickered. She looked around, abruptly uneasy. The electricity potentially not working was an outcome they'd planned for, but the eerie switch, the vacillation of too-bright and all-dark, put her on edge. A superstition; a bad omen. Like she was a child afraid of the dark.

"I will scan the database," Athena said. Her normally smooth voice was scratchy with static, breaking in and out of focus. Had Angela entered a dead zone?

She pressed a thumb into her comm.

"Athena, are there any irregularities with the power flow in this part of the building?"

No response. No chatter from the others. No dulcet electronic tone assuring her that she was not alone. Just the dull _hiss_ of static.

Angela's stomach dropped.

She was in a broad space, a former warehouse, more similar to a cavern or a hangar than a room. There were shelves and boxes piled high, upended chairs and trash strewn across the floor. A huge and ancient eighteen-wheeler, a model old enough to still possess the wheels for which it was named, took up the far half of the room.

The lights overhead flickered again.

She had a flashlight clipped to her jacket, but now she was wondering if she wanted to turn it on. If she wasn't alone, it would give away her position at once.

She didn't know whether the static in her ear was getting louder or whether the bitter edge of panic just made it seem so. She turned in circles, a tiny figure in a space much too large. The hand not feverishly gripping her comm, illuminated with Athena's in-progress map, edged toward the holster at her hip.

There was an office in one corner of the cavern. She began to back toward it. Better, at least, to have only one side to watch.

_Like a mouse right into a trap._

There was no real reason to suspect foul play, she told herself. An electric failure could perhaps account for both the lights and her connection. And Athena would see that her signal had gone dead, would know where she had last been online, would send the others...

The little office felt like a cage. Only one door, but broad glass windows on the wall. A desk, papers still piled atop it. She didn't close the door behind her, afraid of the noise it would make.

The seconds ticked by to every beat of her overloud heart. She stared out at the empty warehouse. Part of her wanted to hide under the desk. A more logical part told her to simply retrace her steps until her comm began working again.

In the vast room outside, the lights went out. The office remained illuminated, a star in the sea of darkness. Angela stared out through the open door, squinting at the space where the brightness was swallowed, the space where, until just a moment ago, she had been able to see.

She did not watch the window.

One second. Two. Five, ten. And then, with a sputtering overhead, the power returned, and Angela breathed a premature sigh of relief.

" _Long time no see, Mercy._ "

He was there, in her peripheral vision. He was there, coming with the darkness like a wraith. She turned in time to see him raising one broad arm gripping a broader shotgun, in time to bring her arms up to shield her face, in time to watch the glass shatter.

Her pistol was out and in her hands and she pulled the trigger again and again, but the little photon bullets might as well have been feathers for all the damage they did. His form wavered, jittered, somewhere between fog and television static, as he climbed over the wall.

"I need backup! Reaper's here—anyone—" she cried, but her comm was still just static. Dead noise. Death in her ear and facing her. She was backed up against a wall and her pistol was useless.

" _Drop the gun_ ," he rasped.

She refused, kept it pointed even as her hands trembled violently, pulling the trigger over and over again as he crossed the distance between them. Four feet, three feet, two. She could no longer hear the static in her ear over the rushing of her blood and the pounding of her heart.

The demon seemed to shrug, and then, with a speed belying his size, he cracked the shotgun down onto her outstretched arm as easily as he had broken the window.

She cried out. Her pistol dropped. Her forearm was bleeding, hurting. A break, a contusion—

What did it matter when she was about to die anyway?

He stooped to pick up the gun from the floor. She watched, transfixed, as he leaned in. His other hand, shotgun discarded, grabbed hold of her shoulder and forced her against the wall. The impact blossomed through her. Her head swam and she tasted blood on her tongue.

But still she watched as he held her feeble pistol, as he lifted it, as a dull horror crescendoed into an urgent panic—

But he did not turn it on her. He held it to his own skull, pressing into the cloth of his black hood, and pulled the trigger.

Black smoke billowed out in a plume. He jerked, hissed, gagged. But he did not crumple, did not fall. The cold slits of his mask stared her down evenly.

" _See_?" he said. " _No use. But you knew that, didn't you?_ "

Angela had never seen the Reaper in person. She'd seen the footage from the Watchpoint attack and from the museum in Numbani, footage that had already been eerie enough. It had been difficult to accept what she'd seen on the screen as reality when it showed what it did. But here he was, talons pressing into her shoulder, smoke swirling in putrid tendrils. He seemed to take up the whole office. The lights overhead were still working, but it made no difference. They were not enough to scatter his unholy form.

"What are you?" she managed. Distraction seemed the best option. Try to hold out until backup could come.

But her arm and her head throbbed, a jarring metronome, and she had very little hope that she would be leaving this tiny room in very good shape, if she managed to leave it at all.

He laughed. It was a guttural sound, worse than his voice. She shuddered in his grasp, twisted against his iron grip, wished to cover her ears. But she could not. He was everywhere, leaving not a sense untouched.

" _Is that how you greet an old comrade, Angela?_ "

Somehow her name was more horrifying than all of this, than the pain and the shot to the head and everything wrong about him. He said it mockingly. Familiarly.

He'd targeted her specifically.

Maybe Talon was here in full-force, a kill squad for each agent. They'd made easy targets of themselves. Angela thought of Fareeha, failing to protect Ana's daughter again, and the thought was enough to make her angry, furious, but there was little fury could do against the unholy might of the creature pinning her to the wall.

"I don't know you," she said, spat. Useless rage, but it felt better than fear. Anything was better than fear.

" _Are you sure about that?_ "

And then there was very little she could do about terror gripping her again, as the clawed hand not pinning her shoulder to the wall reached up and pried off the ghostly white mask.

She recognized him. She recognized him, no matter how much she wished she didn't. Another face lost to her. Another comrade gone to the grave. And with him, at least, she'd had proof of that fact.

She'd last seen Gabriel Reyes lying cold and dead in a tiny room with no windows. And it had been years ago now, but those years were not long enough to prevent her from recognizing him.

But his face—his _face—_

Like the rest of him, all smoke and shadow, no longer shaded in the colors of life. He had the same wounds he'd had after the explosion, whole chunks of his face wiped clean away. But even as she watched, smoky skin attempted to reform, to build up scar tissue, only to slough away into mist once more. A jigsaw puzzle of a face, or a very bad animation.

His eyes. They were still brown. Two spots of color amidst the shadowy nightmare.

"What happened to you?" she managed. She tried to lift her right hand as if to touch his skin, to feel it for herself, but the sharp pain from the earlier blow stopped her.

Could Talon do this? Bring back people from the dead, but wrong? _Warped_?

 _You tried,_ she reminded herself.

But it had not taken; it had not worked; this was not how it worked—

" _You tell me, Doc,_ " he growled, and there was much less of a laugh in his voice now.

She shook her head, words gone. Her mind was racing ahead of her, desperately trying to categorize the symptoms she was witnessing, trying to find an answer she doubted she really wanted. Was a delayed response possible? Sometime after she'd last seen his corpse, had the Fólkvangr kicked in?

" _Looked over the reports from King's Row a lot back then. Null Sector. Weird, wasn't it, Ziegler? Sure, weirder shit's happened. Enough to raise an eyebrow. Then I claw my way out of a grave and find you looking exactly the same as you did before, and now I really have to wonder—_ "

The hand not holding her steady against the wall drew another shotgun from nowhere at all. He was not gentle when he pressed the barrel against her head.

Angela's heart was thudding a leaden drumbeat in her ears. This was it. An abrupt ending in a criminal hideout in Dorado at the hands of a monster who claimed she'd created him herself.

"— _will anything happen to_ you _if I pull the trigger_?"

The question was enough to give her pause. She stared up into that face she had once known and wondered. She'd dismissed the technology as a failure after the explosion, locked it up, tried not to think of it. Even since recall, she'd been reluctant to do much more than look at her old readouts.

But she'd brought it, hadn't she? Dragged it along just in case?

Would it be another King's Row, waking from death into a world of pain and light? Or would it just be the end, her life brutally stomped out by shotgun pellets to the skull?

Her mouth tasted like blood—had she bit her lip? She stared at him and felt the anger again. An end to this, to all of this, to whatever she was doing.

"Try it, then," she ground out.

Perhaps his claw tensed around the trigger. Perhaps he stiffened. Time unspooled into a lazy river of slow-flowing thread while Angela waited for this grim reaper to issue his judgment. Enough time for her to think of the gun cold and heavy against her head, of the possibilities that could have turned Gabriel Reyes into the thing before her, of her comrades clearing rooms one by one and joking over the comm.

But what brought the world back together was not the loud blast of a shotgun. It was the quick and rhythmic bursts of a different sort of fire.

The Reaper—Gabriel Reyes—snarled, turning to look over his shoulder. The gun did not move.

"Ziegler, _duck!_ "

The voice echoed, loud, rough, authoritative, through the broad warehouse, and Angela, as if conditioned, obeyed. Reaper's grip on her shoulder had lessened, and he was unprepared for her dropping to her knees.

The cluster of helix rockets hit the wraith squarely in the back. He shrieked, flailed, his whole torso wavering into smoke. What was the difference between those and her pistol? Angela wondered. The caliber of the weapon? Whether Reaper saw it coming?

The black figure spun away from her, more concerned with the other threat. Angela could see the attacker now, red visor gleaming, the blue and white of his suit equally recognizable. The soldier; the person they'd come here looking for.

He'd called her Ziegler, hadn't he—? Did he know they were coming for him?

Shotgun blasts and pulse fire alternated, deafening, as Soldier: 76 and the Reaper engaged each other. The soldier seemed entirely unalarmed by his foe's strange, warping body. Had they fought before? As Angela pushed herself up, managed on trembling legs to get to the doorway of the little office, she watched them go around and around like actors on a stage performing a rehearsed fight. Or like dancers, rehashing familiar steps. Reaper and Soldier: 76. Gabriel Reyes and—

"Mercy. We go."

There was someone else there too, easy to miss. A slighter figure wrapped in blue with a gleaming, insectoid faceplate and a rifle slung over one shoulder. They had edged around the fight as Angela watched, transfixed, and now they were at her side with insistent hands pulling at her.

"I can't go," she said, trying to pull away. "I need more, I need answers, I have to get some sort of reading on him—"

"You think he'll stand still and let you draw blood?" The voice was smooth, electronic. An omnic? It was hard to tell when every inch of the unknown person was covered in cloth or armor. "J—my partner can deal with him. Come _on._ Didn't shoot your legs, did he? I can't run and carry you at the same time. There's nothing more you can do."

"I have to know," Angela said, even as she let herself be led by the arm around the side of the room, out a different way she'd come in. She couldn't look away.

The Reaper was on the offensive; Soldier's mask was cracked, blood dripping down his face. Reaper advanced slowly, gloating over the kill, an owl tormenting a mouse caught in its claws. But still the blue-clad stranger pulled Angela along, showing hardly a care for the fate of the person they'd called _partner._

" _You can run, Angela,_ " Reaper said. He did not have to say it loudly. His voice, that horrible tenebrous hiss, carried so well. He looked in her direction. The mask was down again, all bone-white gleam and slitted eyes. No more Gabriel. A nightmare that shouldn't exist, but no longer an indictment of her. " _Jack can't protect you forever. Sooner or later I'll get you and we'll find out together._ "

She slowed, even as the hand on her wrist insistently pulled at her. _Jack_? She looked back at the soldier.

But then they were going through a door, going around a corner, leaving questions and mysteries behind. And she wanted to go back, wanted answers there and then, but still she let herself be led away.

"You can run, can't you?" the stranger said tersely, and when she nodded, broke into a jog. "I'll rendezvous you with Tracer—she's not too far. Then you should all go home; even if Talon isn't here yet, they can be—"

"Reaper's Talon, isn't he?"

"Eh. We think he's more of a contractor. Using them to get what he wants."

"Jack—he said Jack—"

"Worry about yourself, Angela."

It was cutting, but the familiarity shook her more. The hallway was spinning around her. Her arm and head throbbed in unison with every step. On a mission she should never have come on, trapped in an old Los Muertos hideout with Reaper and the man they'd come looking for. Soldier: 76. Jack. _Jack?—_

After what she'd seen under the mask, it did not seem so impossible.

Three ghosts. Gabriel and Jack and—

"Who are _you_?"

She stopped running, stopped in the midst of the hall. The stranger stopped a few impatient steps away from her and turned, gestured hurriedly.

"Come on, we need to keep moving—"

" _Who are you_?"

"An ally of 76. Bounty hunter. Call me the Shrike—"

They were clearly unprepared for Angela to lunge, for the force of her attack to send them stumbling backward, for her left hand to scrabble desperately at the faceplate, searching for a locking mechanism, a hinge, anything—

" _Damn,_ Ziegler, _get off—_ "

Three ghosts in the Dorado night. Dead men walking. An innocent-looking little bird leaving her heart impaled on a sharp branch. Wounds that had never really healed properly and now were bleeding everywhere, everywhere—

She couldn't see properly or think properly. The world was too small to fit her and she was finding it hard to breathe. There was only the faceplate under her fingers, and then the Shrike sighing, lifting her own hands, and pressing a button.

And then there she was.

Angela forgot the warehouse. She forgot Gabriel and his accusation and Soldier: 76. She forgot her team and Overwatch and the recall and all the years that had passed.

"Ana," she said, a desperate prayer. Her eyes were overflowing; her nose was running; she could not breathe properly. She could only clutch and look and hold on to this. Hold on to her, this first and last and most beautiful of dreams. "Ana. _Ana. Ana. Ana—_ "

"We don't have time for this," Ana Amari said, and with the faceplate gone it was _her voice again._ Her _face,_ the lines of age, sculpted lips and proud nose and the curve of the Wadjet dark and regal on her cheek.

" _Ana_ ," she choked out again. A refrain that would not be stopped. Her trembling fingers ghosted over her lost mentor's face, reassuring herself that it was there, it was flesh and blood. Her hair was white now, a shock of it slipping out from under her blue headscarf. How Angela wished to twine her fingers through it, feel it soft against them, as she had done before.

The eyepatch—when had that happened? When in the gulf that had separated them—?

But it didn't matter. Ana was alive. That was the only thing that mattered. That fact, warm and real under her fingers. Her world spinning into motion again. Each and every thought and dream and stupid fantasy of the past decade melted away. Just her and Ana, the real Ana, as if she had never left, as if—

Angela was fully sobbing now. She refused to take her hand away. She would not let go of Ana. She would never let go again.

Ana's impatient expression gradually softened. She allowed the touches, the gentle exploration of her face. And then her own arms were wrapping about Angela and pulling her in, holding her, stroking her hair and futilely attempting to wipe away the unending tears.

" _Ana!!_ "

Angela had never felt so much. She sniffled and shook and clung to her with her good hand. Her world had narrowed to the two of them, as it should have been, as they should have been, and yet the horizons had never been more broad and beautiful. She wanted nothing more than to stand there forever, to feel that hand rubbing circles in her back, to smell and feel and breathe nothing but her.

It was strange to think that Eden could be found in the winding hallways of a defunct gang hideout. But there was no other word for it. No other word for a dead woman walking, for the deliverance of Angela's heart back into its proper place.

How lonely a world populated only by her and Ana had been when one of them was dead. How full and wondrous, now that she was back.

"You left," she sniffled, blinking through her tears and lifting her head from Ana's bosom.

Ana's smile—she was smiling she was _smiling—_ faltered. She looked serious, then, regretful. Angela wanted to take the question back. It wasn't important; it didn't matter; they were together now—

"I did," Ana said. "But, Angela, this really isn't the time or the place—"

"I'm not letting you go," Angela said, and meant it. Ana would have to kill her herself before she would ever let the woman out of her sight again. As far as she was concerned, this single golden moment could last forever. It was enough.

"We both need to _move._ Talon—you need to get back to the others—"

"Just a little bit longer," Angela said, a desperate plea. And though Ana glanced between the doors, seemed still to want to go, she sighed and acquiesced and pulled Angela all the closer.

That was how they were when Tracer came skidding around the corner just a few minutes later in a blur of blue light. She almost whizzed right past them, then stopped, did a double-take, took in Angela, still sobbing, one arm limp, and Ana, mask off, holding her.

And then there were more exclamations, more hugs, more tears, Angela's world forcibly expanded to include a third person. And then Jesse, jaw dropping, swearing in Spanish. Ana looking happy but piqued, unprepared for the forced reunions.

Fareeha, still in the dark, coming down the hall to join the party. Her shock was greater. She did not smile. She looked angrier and angrier with each second that went by.

The reunion was ended when Athena called in to report that Dorado police were standing by, requesting Overwatch to check in regarding reports of gunfire. The team and their unexpected addition returned to the warehouse, and though there were bullet holes across the walls and fresh blood on the floor, there was nobody to be found; Soldier: 76 and the Reaper were gone.

Ana strongly objected to accompanying them back to base, but nobody on the team was about to let her slip away. Angela still had not let go of her arm. Perhaps it was too obvious, an allusion to a history the others didn't know, but she did not care. Let them see. She would not cease holding on for as petty a reason as that.

"You owe us this," Fareeha said, still iron, still unsmiling. "You owe this to us and to everyone back in Gibraltar, and—to the world, _Mom._ "

And Ana went, reluctant, the threads of her plan tangled and knotted by the woman who still would not stop clinging to her.

* * *

Gibraltar's kitchen was small, intimate. Nothing like the industrial bot-staffed one for the mess hall at Zürich, though that base had also featured smaller kitchens near the dorms. But this base had never been meant to house the whole organization the way headquarters had.

Ana made her way through dark hallways in search of a cup of coffee. The sun wasn't up yet, but after tossing and turning in her loaner room all night she was ready to call it quits. Life as a bounty hunter had seen some truly abysmal sleeping arrangements, but in Dorado she'd briefly stayed at a hotel—an entire queen-size mattress for herself. A bunk couldn't match that.

She'd never had to spend a lot of time here, but she found the way all right. This base had housed some of the technological engineers—Metis's main programmer had worked from Gibraltar back in the day. The early days.

The light in the kitchen was already on, almost enough to make Ana just turn around and return to hiding in her room. Someone from the old guard looking for answers and sentimentality, or one of the newbies, sure to ask plenty of questions? Either way, the thought of conversation made her feel slightly sick. There had been enough of that last night. The reunion for which she'd been ill-prepared with Reinhardt and Torbjörn; that Shimada brother's eyes boring into her; Angela ogling her for the entire meeting.

Angela. God, she hoped it wasn't—

But Ana had never had great luck, a fact that became evident as she pushed open the door and saw the doctor herself bending over the counter and waiting for the coffee machine to percolate. It was one of Torbjörn's old ones, a cobbled-together mess of scrap metal that looked as if it might fall to pieces at any second. Ana couldn't help but smile at that.

"Ana!" Angela greeted her with that _smile_ again, that desperate look, as if she was looking at God on earth. Years ago, Ana had enjoyed how that undimmed awe made her feel. She had been younger, perhaps cockier, basking in Angela's adoration as her erstwhile lover stared up from between her thighs, always so fucking eager to please—

Now it just made her feel sick. She was in a place she didn't want to be and forced into premature reunions all because of Angela.

Hadn't they _fought_? Hadn't she been mean enough? She had hoped for terse words, accusations—exactly what Fareeha had given her. Ana would have been fine with the animosity if it was coming from Angela. She would have preferred the relief and adoration from her daughter.

Maybe she had been stupid to hope for tears, for at least a hug, but the clear resentment Fareeha had shown her had hurt more than anything else could have.

"Angela," she said, and forced herself to smile. "You're up early. Enough coffee there for two?"

"Of course! I—didn't sleep well."

Ana nodded toward the bandages wrapped around her right forearm. "Not giving you trouble, is it?"

"No, it's not that," Angela said, crossing her arms as if to hide the white wrapping. "I got that fixed up right away. Hardly even needs these. I just had a lot to think about."

 _Don't we all,_ Ana managed to stop herself saying.

"I was—" Angela hesitated. "I kept thinking about Amélie. And what you told us."

Ana frowned at the name. Amélie Lacroix—Talon's Widowmaker—the one who'd taken her eye—had come up the night previous. How Ana had initially assumed that Gérard's wife had been a Talon plant, a double agent. How her and Jack's investigation and snippets gleaned from encounters with Gabriel told a much more horrifying story.

"How could they do that?" Angela was saying. She looked paler than normal. Distressed. Wearing a robe too big for her. "To suppress her, _recondition_ her—I can't fathom the techniques involved, but I keep thinking about whether it could even be undone."

"If we could take her from Talon it would be quite a blow, regardless of whether the programming can be broken," Ana said.

The coffee machine beeped. Angela, who was standing closer, poured them both a full mug. Ana turned to the fridge to add milk.

"But I would have to try, to look into it, to see if there's anything I can—"

"I wonder almost if it would be kinder to leave her as she is," Ana said. "To come back to herself after the things she's done—imagine how she would feel about Gérard and every person she's killed since."

Angela looked even more distressed at that. Ana privately enjoyed the look on her face. Force her to think about consequences, about something beyond her skills and what she could do with them.

Ana picked up her mug. She didn't particularly want to have the conversation she needed to have with Angela, but now was as good a time as any. Given the early hour, they were much less likely to be interrupted.

"Do you want to go somewhere and talk?" she asked.

Angela's face lit up again, all stupid and hopeful like she thought they were about to take a trip down memory lane and whisper sweet nothings to each other in the light of the rising sun.

Well, she was welcome to continue to delude herself.

They ended up on the bluff near the communication tower and Winston's lab. Angela explained that she would frequently sit there with Zenyatta and Bastion. It was odd, Ana thought, for Overwatch to include agents that she hardly knew by name. It was no longer her organization. A new iteration. A more hopeful turn of the leaf. She wished them well.

For a few long minutes she just pulled her coat around her and sipped at her coffee. She wasn't particularly eager to begin the carnage, and it was beautiful there. Angela's pale face and hair were framed against the deep blue-black heavens. She was beautiful too. It was almost enough to make Ana throw away what she intended to say and simply kiss the doctor, relearn every inch of her skin, have her crying out then and there on the rocks as seagulls circled them and the waves beat against the stone below.

Stupid impulses. Impulses that had created this mess in the first place. She would be more prudent this time.

She was just _lonely,_ a loneliness acquired from years on the run. Sometimes Jack had been there; more often just her and her memories and her rifle. Coming back and seeing them all, old comrades, new recruits, somehow intensified the ache. Overwatch hardly needed her any longer. It edged into the future. Ana Amari was dead; the new world had no need for ghosts.

The only person who seemed to need her was the one she would have rather not.

So Ana sighed, took a long drink from her mug, and spoke.

"I didn't expect you to be so happy to see me again. Not after everything—well, what happened there at the end."

"That doesn't matter," Angela said immediately. "You're here now. That's all I wanted."

"It _does_ matter." Ana did not look at her. Looking would make it harder. If their reunion was any indication, the years had not changed Angela's tendency to cry at the drop of a hat. "I told you the truth back then. I thought you might have changed. When I saw you on newscasts afterward, you looked like you'd changed. Then two days ago we meet and you act like nothing had changed at all."

"I was happy to see you again. Happy to see you were alive. I still am—is that so hard to believe?" There was an edge in Angela's voice. Ana risked looking at her. She was not crying, not teary. Her face was set in cold lines. Her eyes were chips of flint.

"I think you're remembering it how you want to, trying to pretend it was all flowers and daydreams. Do you want me to call you selfish again, _habibti_? Would that stop you looking at me like I'm the center of your world?"

Angela was silent. Another sidelong glance showed that she wasn't crying. She was staring pensively past Ana, over the dark sea to where a faint line of light had appeared along the horizon.

Ana waited. The scenery was more than enough to keep her occupied. The Rock of Gibraltar was distant enough from any metropolitan centers to minimize light pollution, so the early-morning sky above was resplendent with stars. More and more the longer she kept looking. She could almost see the broad band of the Milky Way— _there._ A million worlds above. Too many to count. And down on the cliff's edge, two women, specks before the broad might of the universe.

Peaceful. Pleasant, even, were it not for the conversation.

"You don't _want_ me to care about you?" Angela said it eventually. Half-question, half-statement, as if it was the sensible conclusion she'd reached based on the evidence but which she couldn't quite bring herself to believe.

"I don't think you do."

"I love you," Angela said, defensive, stung, and those three words were as nauseating as they'd been all those years ago. Ana could not feel good to hear it, could not even feel flattered. She could only feel disgusted, vaguely contemptuous, unbelieving.

The sky closest to the cliffs was growing lighter. The sun would rise from beyond them. In the shadow of the cliffside, it would take a long time for light to hit.

"Are you still pretending that was love?"

" _Pretending—_?"

"Surely you've met people since, found someone else, had someone else to make you come. I thought it would be good for you to realize that I was nothing more than—"

"How could I move on, Ana? I had never felt like that about anyone before. I did—sleep around, I thought of finding someone else, but it didn't matter. They weren't you. They couldn't ever be you. You were the only thing I thought of, the only thing I wanted—"

"Angela. That's an obsession. Not love. It was never love, not now and not then. You built your own dream and fell in love with that. But I am not that dream. I never stood on the pedestal you built. I am not your tin god."

The sea was restless in the early morning, swirling in waves of iron-grey and deep blue and paler green. How alive Ana felt, sitting cold on the rock and watching the water roil beneath them.

Angela said nothing. She was staring out at the horizon too. Her eyes were dry and distant. Was she even listening? Was she shutting herself out, refusing to hear these unpleasant truths?

Ana breathed in the salty air and kept going.

"It was fun. Back then, playing with you. But it was never more than that. I never meant it to be more than that. I'm sorry for that, _habibti._ For leading you on. But please, listen to me. Accept what I'm saying. You'll be so much happier when you do."

She pushed herself off up with some difficulty—damn old joints—and collected her mug. Angela was still just sitting and staring. She looked washed-out in the light. Colorless. She really hadn't aged a day, had she?

"You came back," she said finally. A whisper on the wind. Ana had to strain even to hear it. "There were things you missed here."

Ana considered.

"Yes," she agreed. "Fareeha."

Then she turned and strode for the kitchen to discard her empty mug.

* * *

Torbjörn had repurposed one of the old temporary communications stations by Winston's lab for his workshop, clearing out old computers and screens and replacing them with a makeshift forge. He was often heard complaining about the cramped quarters compared to his lair back in Zürich, but at least this iteration of his workshop was open to the air.

Angela hadn't visited him before. They had exchanged cursory promises to catch up ("Come on down and I'll brew us some coffee and we can talk and it'll be just like the old days"), but neither had followed through. She wasn't even visiting now to see him. Athena had informed her that Agent Ana could be found there.

Agent Ana. Angela didn't like it. Too informal. It lacked the gravity and importance of _Captain Amari._ Or perhaps she disliked that Ana had chosen to stay after all. Perhaps she selfishly would be happy to have nothing more to do with her ever since the morning on the bluff two weeks ago.

She didn't understand her feelings toward Ana and was ashamed to admit them. Resentment. Anger. The sort of focused dislike for one person that she had never really felt before, the result of adoration curdled and gone rotten.

Still hope, though. Still stupid, childish hope, nostalgia, the little flutter in her chest whenever she saw or heard her—

But Angela knew what she was feeling now. There was none of that. There was only anger.

The doors to Torbjörn's workshop were thrown open to air out the place as Angela strode up the track toward it. The engineer himself was standing just outside at one of his benches, and beside him was Ana. Her rifle was dismantled on the table.

Torbjörn looked up at the sound of Angela's shoes against the pavement. He waved an inviting hand.

"Angela! Afternoon, wasn't expecting you—"

"I'm not here to visit," she said shortly. The engineer's smile disappeared when he took in the look on her face. Ana looked up more slowly. Her eyes met Angela's, but for once the contact did not send chills down Angela's spine. "I was looking for Ana."

"Well, I'm here," Ana said, brushing off her work gloves. The nonchalance somehow made Angela angrier, like Ana should have known what she was feeling, should have already been apologizing. "What was it you wanted?"

"I wanted to talk about your rifle," Angela said. " _That_ rifle."

Ana exchanged a look with Torbjörn. Angela began to suspect that she was lucky to have caught both of them in the same place.

"Er, Angela," the engineer began, but Ana interrupted him.

"What about my rifle?"

Her tone was pointedly casual. She did not look away but met Angela's cold gaze head-on with her eyebrow raised. A challenge. Well, Angela would not back down.

"This morning Lúcio told me he'd seen the designs for it. Specifically, he wanted to know whether I'd helped design it, because it reminded him of the Caduceus."

"And?" Ana said, unperturbed.

"And I asked Athena to see the designs myself, and I'm sure you already know exactly what I saw. You reversed my systems to create a weapon that disrupts the body's natural processes. You—you took the Caduceus, which I designed to _help_ and to _heal,_ and you made it into something that does the exact opposite."

Torbjörn was shifting uncomfortably, but he said nothing.

"What is your point, Angela?" Ana asked. She sounded—uninterested. Bored. And it was that, that indifference, that really sent Angela over the edge.

"I did not know about this. You took _my work_ without asking, without so much as a mention, and you deployed it for a purpose I wholeheartedly disagree with—"

"Have you forgotten," Ana cut in smoothly, "the contracts you agreed to when you signed on with Overwatch? The clauses that stipulated that your research and anything you produced belonged to Overwatch first and to yourself second?"

"So you couldn't have bothered to _ask_? To tell me? You didn't think I would appreciate a warning that my inventions were being put to the opposite use I intended them?"

"Why bother telling you when we knew you'd react like _this_?"

Ana waved a hand. A lazy, condescending hand. A gesture that made Angela want to stride closer and throttle her, or perhaps just take the pieces of the disassembled rifle and toss them into the sea. She'd asked herself, many times, whether Ana had ever seen her as anything other than a child. And here, at last, was her answer.

"You know, Ana, I never even suspected you were a coward. But now—running because Amélie shot your eye out, saying you didn't tell me because you knew I'd be _angry—_ I really have to wonder."

"All right, all right, that's enough of this," Torbjörn said, climbing off the bench and positioning himself between the two of them as if that would end the argument. "Angela—Ana came to me with the idea and we built it. Just a prototype. Never saw any combat use until she took it with her—"

"You knew the whole time? _You_ wouldn't tell me?"

"I'm sorry," he said, and looked it. "Look—something like that could be really useful against Talon. Stop them from regrouping. Against that Reaper, too, in simulations it's been—"

" _I did not design the Caduceus to counter Talon!_ I designed it to _help_ people, to _heal_ them, and you go behind my back and—" Angela looked back at Ana. That was where her anger lay. She could not be upset with Torbjörn, not really, not when she was already filled with so much ire for the woman who was—had been— _was_ her world. "—and when I told you about the Fólkvangr you told me it would be misused, confiscated by the UN, and now I realize the danger you were actually talking about was my own comrades taking my work and using it how I never intended—"

"The _what_?"

"You're right, _Captain Amari._ I did sign that clause. I suppose then I still thought that you would respect my work—that you would respect _me_ at all."

Angela ran out of words. She stood there, breathing heavily and shaking, anger rotten in her mouth and throat and stomach. She had spat out so much bile, but it was still there, more and more, an unending fount. All the emotion she had ever felt for the woman standing before her was waiting to break down the dam and sweep her away.

Torbjörn was looking between them as if he was beginning to realize that he was caught in the midst of an argument that had very little to do with him after all.

Ana was no longer smiling. She had, at last, lost that infuriating look of detached superiority. Instead she was looking at Angela very intently. After a few moments she turned to say something quietly to Torbjörn, who protested, but Ana shook her head. The engineer gave a final look between the two of them and then headed up the stairs toward Winston's lab. Ana silently beckoned Angela into the workshop.

It was over-warm inside, even if the fire had died down to embers. Given how small this place was compared to Torbjörn's old forge, Angela had no doubt it would heat like an oven when the fire was going strong. She didn't envy the engineer that come summer.

"This isn't about the rifle," Ana said curtly. She had crossed her arms and positioned herself by the far door. "You're just upset with me."

And that was _infuriating, humiliating—_

"Do you think I can't be both? Do you think I lack the professional integrity to be bothered by having my work stolen?" Her voice was shaking. She had managed to hold herself together this far, to keep her anger cold and level, but now it was harder. They were close together in the little room and Ana, just as she always had, was drawing emotion from her with ease.

Ana sighed. "All right. I'm sorry you disapprove of what I've done with your research, but it suited my purposes."

Angela laughed, humorless and angry. "Why bother saying _sorry_ when it's clear you couldn't care less?"

"Look, Angela, I don't want to talk about that—we can fight about my rifle some other time. I want to know what you were talking about earlier—"

"Why do you get to decide that? What if I'm not done talking about _your rifle_? I won't _get over it,_ not when you're rubbing it in my face like this—"

"What was that thing you said? The Volk—what?"

"Fólkvangr," Angela said automatically, and then immediately hated herself for it. Still so ready with the right answer, like she was in med school again and charming her professors. Still so fucking eager to please. Was it because it was Ana, or was it just who she was? Some irrevocable part of her that was happy to turn belly-up and offer a surrender?

"Yes, that." Ana's eye was sharp upon her face. The gaze of a falcon—or a shrike. "You were talking about that idea of yours. Resurrection."

Angela turned away from her, feigned innocence with a shrug.

Ana kept pressing. "You gave it a name. It didn't have a name then. You _worked_ on it, _developed_ it, got far enough to name it—"

"Why should I tell you anything about my work when you've made it clear you can't be trusted with it?" Angela said, flippant, careless, mirroring Ana's earlier indifference. It did feel good to be on the other side, to watch her erstwhile mentor and lover's forehead crease and her frown deepen.

"This isn't a joke, Angela. Tell me what you did to Gabriel."

The question felt like an accusation, a punch in the stomach. It was hard to play cold and unaffected when she was remembering a ghastly face under a mask and a shotgun barrel pressed against her forehead.

_You tell me, Doc._

"That is between me and—"

"Like hell it is! Tell me why Gabriel Reyes is a—a—a zombie! He pointed the finger at you when we fought the first time, and I didn't believe him—thought there was no way you were _stupid_ enough to go through with it. You say I don't respect you? I respected you then, trusted you enough to believe in you, and it turns out that faith was misplaced. _Tell me what you did to him._ "

Angela swallowed. She could not remain unaffected by Ana's anger. She remembered the last times and felt as if she might be sick, and this time what she had done was worse, so much worse—

"The system had worked before. I—I was alone in the morgue with him, and—"

"Worked before on _whom_? Lab rats?"

"No! Well—yes, but on a person too. He wasn't the guinea pig, Ana, and even if it didn't work I _never_ expected—"

"Who? An agent? Someone from the old days?" Ana looked like she wanted to grab Angela by the shoulders and shake her until answers fell out, until she finally started talking.

Angela said nothing. She couldn't. This, all of this, was too much.

Slowly it seemed to dawn on Ana. Her eye widened, and then her lips parted, and a look of sort of horrified disgust came over her face. Angela could hardly stand being looked at like that. Like she was a monster.

"You haven't aged," Ana said, an accusation.

Angela swallowed again, hard. "No."

"Will you?"

"I don't—I don't know."

Breathing was harder. All her fury had blurred into anxiety, confusion. She felt tears brimming, unbidden, in the corner of her eyes. It did not feel good to talk about these things. Here she was, laying herself barer for Ana than she ever had before, but she derived no pleasure whatsoever from it. Exposed. Disgusting.

Ana was quiet. Angela rushed to fill the silence. Suddenly she couldn't bear it, this quiet judgment. She poured out words, desperate to defend herself, to pretend that there were excuses for what she had done.

"I didn't do it on purpose. I'd never even used it successfully on a human subject before. A couple years after you left, on assignment in King's Row, I just—died. And it—brought me back. I could hardly believe it, but there wasn't really any other explanation. I shouldn't have survived. Without it, I wouldn't have—"

"And Gabriel?"

Her cheeks were wet now. Talking was making everything worse, not better. She wanted to hide in her room, in the medbay, to stuff her secrets down. They could not hurt her from the inside. Now, in the open, they could.

"I've been looking into it since Dorado. My theory is that the technology had bonded itself to me, to my DNA. When it tried to rebuild him, it used me as a blueprint—but the conflict between his genes and mine made healing impossible. He's trapped in a cycle of attempted regeneration, sustained by the Caduceus, rebuilding according to my genetic code and then his own body rejecting the foreign material—"

"But you tried it."

"Ana, he was there in front of me! Everything had—the explosion, him and Jack, everything fell so quickly. And there was hardly anything left of Jack—I suppose because he didn't actually die—but Gabriel had a body, and it had worked before. I don't deny that it was foolish, that it was a mistake, but I never thought it would go wrong the way it went wrong.

"But I—if I look at the readouts, if my theory is right, I can look into the possibility of undoing it, or at least treating it. I don't know if he would die then, or if there would be some way to resurrect him—properly, but—"

"You haven't satisfied your hubris? You still want to see what you can do?"

Ana's voice was quiet, a slender knife. Angela responded in a crescendo of sound and emotion.

"I am acknowledging my mistakes and I want to fix them! You can interpret my motives however you want. You can call me selfish—I won't argue. But I want to do right by him and by me."

Ana just looked at her. Flat again, expressionless. The look of one observing something that was not worth the energy of interest.

Like an object. Something that had felt so good years before, in a different context, but felt so painful now. She had given Ana every tool she needed to eviscerate her. She had given her the knife, handle-first, and asked to be slit open.

She did not enjoy it any longer.

"Thank you for telling me what you did to him," Ana said eventually, her tone as empty as her face. "I'm sure we'll have more to talk about later."

"We're not done here. You haven't accounted for the rifle. I'm not the only one who's made mistakes here. I am not the only one who has wronged someone else—"

But Ana was turning her back, walking out the door, going the same way Torbjörn had gone.

"I'm not _done,_ Ana! You can't just end the conversation on your own terms! You can't—"

Up the stairs, toward the doors. They slid open at her approach.

" _Are you going to disappear for a decade again_?" Angela hated the sound of her own voice, almost a scream, torn from her ragged throat. All her emotion and pain laid bare in a handful of words. So much for keeping calm and cool. So much for the upper hand.

She should have realized, a long time ago, that Ana would never give her what she wanted.

* * *

At mid-afternoon, the kitchen was blissfully empty. Nobody eating a late lunch; nobody yet working on dinner. Nobody to see Angela rummaging through the cabinets.

Plenty of Reinhardt's beer, but her interest was in something stronger. She knew they'd ordered sake, but couldn't find it. Perhaps Hanzo was hoarding it in his room. There was wine, some of which was hers, but she didn't want that either. She shuffled the bottles aside more and more frantically until at last, at the back, she found an unopened bottle of whiskey.

She would buy McCree a replacement, she told herself as she tucked it underneath her lab coat and hurried out of the room. He'd probably forgotten it was there, hidden in the back. Nobody would know it was gone. Nobody at all.

Her room was a cell. She couldn't go back there. She would stare at her desk chair and remember the afternoon she'd spent masturbating and dreaming of Ana. She would feel the walls closing in around her. She couldn't go to the common room or to the medbay. She got too many visitors to her office.

There were a number of paths dug out of the cliffs around the base. They were steep, narrow tracks, mostly designed for security drones rather than people. But it was easy enough to climb up one, watching the buildings get smaller underneath her, very aware that a misstep would mean a fall and a likely death.

She considered going back for the Valkyrie suit, for the wings that could save her, but she dismissed the idea. What did it matter? What worth did the thing called Angela Ziegler possess?

Eventually, a good two hundred feet above the scooped-out alcove of the base, the path ran into a flattened shelf of overhanging rock. There was space enough to sit, and sit she did.

She twisted open the bottle and drank quickly, messily, without ceremony. It burned down her throat and spilled down her chin and she coughed, sputtering, breathless. She disliked the taste and always had, but that was hardly the point. She was not drinking to enjoy. She was drinking to lose her mind up there on the cliffs, with the afternoon sun scorching down and the ocean roaring and the gulls circling overhead.

She'd had an early lunch, so it didn't take very long for the whiskey to hit her. She was crying by that point, furious at herself, at Ana, at everything. She ran her hands along the rough stone as if hoping for it to cut her. The sensation was good. It was real. Without it, she might have thought herself dreaming, might have taken a few steps forward as if she thought she could fly.

Ana was there through every second of it. She surrounded every thought as an acute pain. Every heartbeat, every breath, even the taste on Angela's tongue was her. She had defined herself by her erstwhile mentor and lover for so long, and now she found herself hating her. Hating herself. Confused and desperate and broken.

_She used you she played with you she took what she wanted and threw you away you offered yourself up you were happy to have anything it was your own fault for dreaming—_

She was sitting above Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Overwatch's head of medicine drinking whiskey at three in the afternoon, and she was thirty-seven years old but she had never had less of an idea who she was or what she was doing. Her life was a chain of mistakes. Her future was a series of bad decisions that she hadn't yet made. But she would make them, and then she would regret them, and she would never learn.

She would never learn.

Somewhere after the fifth shot he joined her.

It would have startled her if she was sober to glance to her right and see him, all silver-green, glinting in the sunlight. But in her current state, head swimming, seconds passing like eons and the world feeling unreal about her, she hardly jumped.

It took her a while to think of something to say. She rubbed uselessly at her wet cheeks, sniffled, tried to make herself the slightest bit more presentable. She didn't want him to see her like this. Really she didn't want anyone to see her like this. She was their doctor, a professional, someone upon whom they could rely. Only Ana had ever seen her break down like this before. Ana, the witness and the cause.

"Why—what are you doing up here?" she managed finally. Her voice was low and hoarse, rasping from her throat.

Genji took a while to answer. He was perched forward on the cliff, his legs dangling into the abyss below. Could he survive the fall where she would not? Angela wondered dully.

"You weren't there for my checkup. I asked Athena and she told me you'd taken the surveillance track up here."

This made Angela feel, if possible, even worse. Careless enough to miss an appointment and stupid enough to not change her location status to private.

"I'm sorry, Genji, I completely forgot—"

"I'm not upset. It isn't a problem, really. Lúcio took care of it—he's becoming quite the medic. You've trained him well."

"Why did you come after me, then?" Angela reached for the bottle only to discover, piqued, that it was no longer sitting beside her, but on Genji's other side.

"It is very unlike you to miss an appointment." He shrugged. "I was worried."

Worried?

"Why would you worry about me?" she asked, an honest thought bubbling to the surface with the help of five shots she'd already downed. "You don't like me. I've never given you any reason to like me—to care about me."

"Angela," he said, sounding surprised. "You are a comrade. Of course I would follow you. I would be dead if it wasn't for you—many of our teammates can say the same."

She shook her head. The emotion was rising again in her throat, spilling forth from her eyes, uncontainable. She was not strong enough to suppress the things she was feeling.

"I destroyed your life. I made you—a weapon. I never asked or considered—I just thought about her and did what I wanted."

There was a long silence, broken only by her stuttering half-breaths and the occasional cries of the seagulls soaring over the rock. Genji was not looking at her but out over the base, over the water, where the sun shimmered and turned the sea to liquid gold.

"Maybe so," he said at last. "But regardless of your intentions, you saved my life. If it wasn't for you, I would have never met Jesse or my master or seen my brother again. I would not have known the anger I knew those years in Blackwatch, but neither would I have been able to overcome it. I held it against you, but I do not any longer."

"You should," she muttered.

"No. Anger stagnates. It is useful sometimes, as momentum, but when it festers it holds you in place. My master taught me that. He taught me to move on."

"I want to move on," she choked out. "I don't know what I'm doing, what I've ever been doing. What I want, who I am—"

"You want to help people," Genji said. "I believe that about you. You have come this far because that is what you want."

"No," she said vehemently, shaking her head, blinking through a fresh wave of tears and self-repulsion. "I'm selfish. I only wanted to help myself, to never lose anyone again, to not have to feel that. It was me—it was only ever me, and—Genji—I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"

She couldn't manage words anymore then, just sobs, wracking her whole body as she doubled over and tried to keep the world from spinning. Genji tentatively wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and then, when she leaned into his touch, embraced her. His metal plating was warm, if not comfortable. And all dignity gone, Angela simply sobbed, wept until she could hardly breathe as the late-afternoon sun baked down on them both.

* * *

The two training bots cried out in artificial pain and fell one after another, the victims of a steady hand and a keen eye, of a gun that did not miss a single shot.

Ana watched and did not know what to feel.

Fareeha turned away from the targets and toward her mother.

"Good evening," she said, polite, cautious.

"That was a very good round," Ana said, nodding toward the fallen robots. In a few seconds they would surge to life again, stalwartly waiting for the next shot. But for now they were little more than crumpled heaps of scrap.

"I know," Fareeha said. Her tone was still polite, though the words hardly were.

Ana forced herself to smile, to chuckle.

"See? You never needed me to teach—"

"Please stop."

Ana stopped talking. Her smile disappeared, erased by those two syllables. Of course she was too late for jokes. She had been too late for jokes a decade ago. Fareeha was no longer a child. She was a soldier in her own right, a fact of which Ana was reminded with every glance at her prosthetics.

"Did you have something to talk about?" Fareeha asked. Straight to the point. The message could not have been clearer: she wanted to spend as little time as possible in her mother's presence.

The old wound that had begun forming years before Ana left had only grown since she had returned. She could feel it then, in that moment, pulsing, bleeding. An ache as she stared at the girl—at the woman who hardly felt like her daughter any longer. She wanted to go back, to slip through time and hold Fareeha again, see her as a child, hear her laugh and cry " _Mama!"_

But would she do anything differently if she could? Did she just want to dwell in the time before she was forced to realize the consequences of her choices?

"I wanted to congratulate you," she said, effortlessly casual. The consummate sniper, never allowing her emotions to affect her demeanor.

"Well, thank you."

At a meeting earlier that evening Winston had gathered the whole team to announce directions moving forward. To locate and establish communication with the fugitive Soldier: 76, whom they now knew to be Jack Morrison. To locate and attempt to capture or gather data on the mercenary Reaper to assist Agent Mercy in developing a treatment that might restore him to the man he had been, Gabriel Reyes.

And the appointment of a Strike Commander to lead the new generation of Overwatch.

"I'm proud of you," Ana said softly.

Fareeha's façade of forced politeness broke.

"You really want to try that lie? You want to say you're proud _now,_ after all of this? After all you ever wanted was to stop me from doing what I wanted to do?"

"I followed your career, Fareeha, I watched you as you rose through the army and Helix—"

"You _watched_ me? So when you couldn't control me anymore because you were pretending to be dead, you still couldn't let me be? You could keep tabs on me and know about every promotion, but you couldn't ever send a postcard telling me you weren't actually six feet under?"

"Faree—"

"And now you're back, but you still can't control me, so you decide to play nice? Finally, after thirty-two years, you decide that you care about and support what I want instead of what you want?"

The accusation hit too close to home, close enough that bile like guilt rose in Ana's throat. What was she to say to that? To any of that?

"It's my life, Mom," Fareeha finished. "Not yours. It never was yours, though you tried your hardest to make it."

"I didn't want to control you," Ana said, but the words sounded weak and unconvincing even to herself.

Fareeha didn't bother with an answer. She merely snorted and shook her head.

"What do you want me to do?" Ana asked, her frustration spilling forth. "You don't want apologies and you don't want congratulations—"

"You know what I want!" Fareeha said. Her voice echoed across the practice range, too loud for the small space. The training bots, reformed at the distant end, bore silent witness to the conversation. "You know that it's too late for it."

Ana wanted to say something, _needed_ to say something, needed to find the right words that would make her daughter look at her with something other than anger and resentment. But her mind was blank. She had tried all she knew. And now she could only watch as Fareeha, brow furrowed, turned away from her and headed for the doors. She put her practice pistol back into its locker, visibly sighed, and then spoke again.

"Thanks for saying you're proud of me," she said, facing the door. "I wish—I just wish I could believe you. Good night."

And she was gone.

Ana stayed where she was for several long minutes, staring after her daughter. She could go after her, but what use would that be? She had nothing else to say. She had made her choices, years and years ago, and now she was reaping the consequences. In the end, she hadn't made the smallest difference. Fareeha had done as she pleased, and now the chasm between them seemed too broad to be crossed.

She was gripped by lethargy, a tiredness of emotion and of age. Back at Overwatch and going through the motions. What was there left to protect, to fight for?

She made her slow way back to the weapons lockers herself to withdraw a rifle. It was smaller than her usual, smaller than the rifle about which Angela had made such a fuss. It had been an unexpected confrontation; Ana had _borrowed_ the research long enough ago that she'd all but forgotten about it. But she'd felt guilt at the time, and she'd felt it again when Angela called her out.

Overwatch was not the place for that bright-eyed teenager who wanted to save lives and help the world. It had never been the place for her.

Ana loaded the rifle, took her place on the range, and fired. A shot for each target. The bots fell, sparking and squealing. As methodical and easy as tying her shoes. She had gotten so good at it. Pulling the trigger was the simplest thing in the world.

As she shot, she wished she had been given other gifts. The ability to talk to her daughter, to convince her, to protect her. In the end, her rifle seemed to have saved nobody at all. The world of faceless masses spared by the end of the Crisis was distant, difficult to make out. It felt more like a dream than anything else. Fareeha was real, and Jack and Gabriel, and she had failed them.

After her third or fourth round of shooting, the doors opened again. She heard them and dared to hope that Fareeha had returned. She did not turn around for several long seconds to savor that flimsy hope.

Then she looked, and saw blonde hair and blue eyes, and the hope sputtered out.

"Angela, please. This is not a good time."

"I'm sorry," Angela said. Her voice was hoarse. As she continued to walk forward, closing the distance between them, Ana saw that her eyes were red and bright.

She sighed, resigned herself to whatever conversation was coming, and shouldered the rifle.

"What do you want?" Ana hardly sounded steadier. What a pair they made.

"You weren't—in your room, or in the kitchen, or the common room, so I thought you might be down here—"

Angela was uncomfortable, glancing everywhere but at her, eyes flicking back and forth.

"If you're looking for a fight, I can't do it tonight. Not now."

"I wasn't. I—" Angela came to a stop in front of her, close enough to reach out and touch. She forced herself, with some difficulty, it seemed, to look Ana in the eye. Her cheeks were flushed—from crying, Ana thought, rather than embarrassment.

"You were right," she whispered. "I was selfish. I am—selfish. It was a dream. I fell in love with that, not with—well—"

The tears began to escape her eyes, glittering on her pale lashes and dripping slowly down her cheeks. She had always been so pretty while she cried. Ana would have been glad to lift a hand and dry her face, to feel her skin and her hair, so soft, always so soft—

"But—please, Captain Amari," Angela rasped.

Her blue eyes, their color bright and radiant as she cried, drew Ana in. She looked so lost, so hopeless, staring at Ana as if she was the only thing in the world and she would disappear if Angela so much as blinked.

"Angela," Ana murmured.

" _I want to keep dreaming._ "

The rifle was heavy on her shoulder. Fareeha's words were still echoing in her mind, acute pains. In other rooms, oblivious, their comrades carried on: Winston and Athena making plans; Hanzo sitting on the cliffs to drink his nightly tea; Hana challenging Reinhardt to a round of Starcraft. Somewhere beyond, in the darkness, her brothers-in-arms pursued each other, an endless game of cat-and-mouse, the wraith and the soldier.

But there, in that room, was only her and Angela. Her and Angela and the weight on her shoulders and the dull ache in her heart.

Angela's skin was searing to the touch. Her cheeks were wet and her lips were pliant and soft. She opened her mouth, panted into Ana's, let their tongues slide against one another. Ana curled a hand around the back of her throat, tangled another in her hair, and kissed her. She drank in Angela's little gasps, little moans, the press of their bodies.

She kissed to forget everything else. She kissed because Angela was beautiful, even crying and desperate. She kissed because she wanted to feel hands on her again, that worshipful touch.

She kissed and kissed and let herself believe that the dream had room for two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A playlist for this fic can be found [here.](https://8tracks.com/maizulee/gotze-1)
> 
> [A Softer World #1000](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1000), which provided a great deal of inspiration for this fic.
> 
> Götze now has a sequel: [Opfer.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15530346)

**Author's Note:**

> Comments very much appreciated!


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